A Nice Place To Visit
by Ninjer-8492
Summary: A Tale set in Bastila's early days, this follows the young Padawan on a dark journey into a parallel universe where the Order operates as a Dick Tracy style Police Force and uncovers a dangerous conspiracy in the process. Heavy AU.
1. The Mission

Juhani slipped back to her corner, exhausted. The staff in her hand fell like a lead weight.

The slightly furry warrior from Cathar chugged down an entire bottle of water in under a few seconds, her nose taking in the scent of sweat in the training chamber. It had taken a while to build up her muscles using weighted weapons and a strict exercise regimen, but the former slave had become a machine of precision under the Order's guidance.

"Don't tell me you're tired already," Bastila Shan called out from her end of the chamber. "I was just getting started." She grinned and Juhani stared at the braces on her teeth. The beige human's hair hanging loosely. Both were wearing training garments, loose fitting for breathability.

Padawan stared at padawan. Bastila, a nineteen year old, was brash and arrogant. But such things were to be expected. With the council suspecting that the next time they saw Revan she would be fully a Sith, Bastila was currently seeking some method to help the Order. Like a true patriot, she had volunteered to participate in a series of Neurosurgery experiments-the Order desiring to amp Bastila's already potent talent for mind control.

It struck odd to Juhani, herself only a few years into the Order, that Bastila would be recalled to the Dantooine enclave on such hush hush business. much less that she would be paired with the Cathar, who was being trained as the Order's equivalent of a police department's Internal Affairs Officer. Either Bastila had committed treason, or Bastila was needed for some other, more serious purpose.

Juhani, her natural brown locks made to stand on the top of her scalp via a special elastic band, begin to wonder why the Masters needed her to guard the Order's current MVP. Usually she investigated breaches of protocol by young knights. Covertly, of course. Something was in the air. A new sort of tension. They were being prepared for a mission. She could feel it.

"Again?" Bastila asked.

"Patience. This was just to kill time, remember?" Juhani replied, still not quite used to speaking basic, her accent thick. "Master's will want us soon. We must be on best behavior, Da?"

"Right," Bastila replied eagerly, grabbing a towel. "The Master's seem worried to you?"

"Da," Juhani stated bluntly, desiring to share her suspicions with the bubbly, energetic fighter. "But Masters always worry over something."

"I mean, more worried than usual. Dare I say it, they seemed almost...freaked out. Like they were out of their element."

"Padawans?" a Kel-Dor knight called out. "The masters are waiting for you in their private conference room. Be showered and presentable in fifteen minutes."

Bastila's face scrunched like a kinrath pup as she begin to worry.

"We're not in trouble, are we?" she asked Juhani as they headed to the nearby shower stalls.

"Nyet. I no think so," Juhani answered. "Danger, however, is other matter entirely."

"Good morning, Padawans. Please, be seated," Master Atris greeted them, cigar and a glass of whiskey in hand as the students sat down at the end of the long rectangular oak table. The room was simple and curved like an oval, dark brown in terms of color scheme, with white curtains over the closed windows. Juhani had no doubt the room was utterly soundproof. Scenes of flowers and deer were carved into the walls. What caught Juhani's attention was the famous oil painting, "The Death of Xendor", hanging from a nearby archway on her left... Painted by Cambul Marek, a former Jedi and now notorious alcoholic and drug abusing cyborg freak of nature, it depicted a contingent of ancient masters assassinating the first known Dark Jedi. Cambul had captured the man's terror well, as he was depicted being stabbed more than thirty times with various shivs by quite literally the very people who had trained him, attacking him in a public forum in front of a crowd of horrified onlookers, particularly that of Xendor's lover, Arden Lyn. The Jedi had not truly understood the type of enemy they were now dealing with (and would be dealing with from now on) and it was said that they had acted irrationally, assuming him to be some sort of freak, which Xendor had, of course, been, at least at the time.

Juhani refocused her attention on the Echani Jedi master, ice white hair coiled tightly in a conservative bun, her eyes like two jewels of cold blue fire. Her light beige skin wrapped tightly by an even whiter set of Historian's robes. Juhani often answered directly to Atris in most cases when Quatra wasn't instructing her, reporting on who was loyal and who was not, who had broken the code and who still honored it. Juhani was Atris's eyes and ears among the general Jedi population.

"The other masters will be along in a moment. Would you two care for some water?" Atris asked, her clipped refined accent rippling along both Juhani and Bastila's spine.

The pair shook their head. Bastila stood ramrod straight, attempting to look serious and confident. Inwardly, Juhani knew Bastila had an attack of the butterflies in her stomach.

"Ah well suit yourself," Atris replied, opening up a small manila folder. "Hmmm..."

"Is something the matter, Master Atris?" Bastila asked.

"Says here you've manifested Battle Meditation to a limited degree," Atris answered before looking up at the padawan. "Impressive. How are the migraines?"

"I manage, Master Atris," Bastila replied formally, hands folded behind her back.

"I like your attitude. Keep it up and we'll have a secret weapon yet. Now I should warn you that what is said in this room must never leave this room. You are not to ever repeat it to another soul as long as you live what you are about to hear. Is that clear?"

Both nodded and took a seat.

"Excellant. Ah, and here are the other Masters," Atris said as Vrook, Zhar, and Vandar walked in. Vrook, only a greying crown of hair on an otherwise bald head, was wearing his typical frown as he strode in wearing blue robes. He was light colored, and Bastila spotted liver spots on his hand as he sat down. Zhar, a middle aged man of the Twilek species with red skin also sat, wearing a typical brown and white set of robes. Vandar, a green skinned alien who went up to about Bastila's knee floated in on a specially made repulsorlift chair.

"Good morning Padawans," Vrook said gruffly. "Master Atris instructed you on the importance of secrecy?"

"Da," Juhani answered. "We are silent like good poison."

"In that case, let us get straight to the point," Zhar began. "Are any of you familiar with the concept of parrallel universes?"

"Da. Infinite in nature and scope. They contain either versions of ourselves or perhaps even situations and people completely foreign to us," Juhani answered. "Republic scientists currently have no known method of opening doorway to such places, if indeed they even exist."

"But the Jedi council has always known better," Vrook added, scowl deepening. "Multiversal Incursions happen more often than you might think."

"Understand this, Padawans," Vandar now spoke, ancient eyes deepening with concern. "We are taking a terrible risk letting you know anything on this subject. If you should end up falling for whatever reason, the entire galaxy could be put in danger, and we would have no choice but to...silence you."

Juhani's hackles rose. This was definately NOT an ordinary assignment.

"Are you saying there has been an incursion?" Bastila asked, wide-eyed.

"Yes, and recent," Atris answered. "An...interloper arrived. Asking for our assistance."

"We verified the truthfulness of his claims telepathically. He's from a dimension where his version of the Order is only one hundred years old. Still young," Vrook mentioned.

"His version of the Order operates like a police department rather than a sect of monks," Atris added. "He asked directly for you two to aid him. You're both dead ringers for 'his' versions of you."

"What does this brother from another dimension want?" Bastila asked, on pins and needles.

Atris downed the last of her drink, and re-lit her cigar with her pale blue lightsaber.

"Oh, you're going to 'love' this next bit dear Bastila," Atris replied, taking a puff. "He wants you to help kill 'his' Revan."

"We're not assassins," Bastila said firmly. "Why not pass it off to Kenobi?" Bastila had noted with distressing frequency how willingly-eagerly, even-the Order was resorting to a zero tolerance policy. It had already alienated some Jedi, choosing exile rather than serve an order whose first solution was now the lightsaber.

Not so with her. She knew the score-better than most did. A war against the Sith would have to be fought with every measure at their disposal, for the enemy knew no mercy.

Even so, the thought of being used for dirty work was disqueting to the young Jedi. Like it cheapened her somehow.

"Kenobi and Dimmak are best used for when an...example needs to be made," Vandar answered carefully. "If we sent them, we risk a great deal of collateral damage, and we don't want to leave any bigger a footprint than we have to. It's not our territory. Not our rules."

"Apparently on the other side of the pond, Revan is as distrusted there as she was here," Vrook answered. "Apparently, they've had their own experiences with other dimensions. Revan going bad seems fairly common, like it's some sort of flashpoint or something."

"They want to stop a problem before it starts," Zhar explained, folding his hands and sighing. "And after seeing the destruction Revan's caused here by answering the Mandalorians need for war...I'm inclined to be sympathetic."

"If something goes wrong, we'll be trapped there," Juhani said.

"We wouldn't send you there if we didn't know beyond a shadow of a doubt you could be retrieved," Vandar said. "And besides, we must know if the surgeries have taken. We must test you in the most stressful way imaginable."

"You worry too much about trying to convince them, Master Vandar," Vrook spoke detachedly. "They'll go."

"Forgive my impertinence, Master Vrook, but you seem awfully certain of my decision before I've made it," Bastila spoke as respectfully as possible.

Vrook, far from being offended, actually took on an uncomfortable-to-look-at half-smile.

"A friend once told me," he began, folding his arms as he leaned backwards in his seat, staring wistfully out a nearby window, "that when you're old. you'll have yourself a long, long list of memories. If you're lucky most will be good. If not, some will be bad, and if you're really unlucky, some of them will be so bad you'll never want to be reminded of them again. Ever. Now, in the next forty or fifty years, do you really want to live with the memory, 'I once had the chance to go on the trip of a lifetime into a parallel universe and stop a tyrant's rise to power'...but _declined?"_

"Why, Master Vrook, I misjudged you," Atris joked, taking another puff as she felt the Padawans make their impulsive decision to take the assignment. "You DO have an electrum tongue."

"Can you believe this, Juhani?" Bastila hissed to Juhani after they had been briefed on the mission of a lifetime. "I can't believe we got this sort of Job!"

"Da. Pity it will have to be our little secret," Juhani answered with a throaty rumble.

The pair were by themselves in the construction shop in the sub-level, both busily working on their lightsabers. Bastila's was a single bladed hilt, constructed of a dull brown metal with a heavy looking, bowl-shaped emitter in a silver finish. The activation stud was deep set into the hilt's grip, to avoid accidentally hitting it.

"They must really want to test you. They say you had battle meditation. Is it true?"

"Yes," Bastila sighed, using a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass to carefully remove the cyan colored crystal from the chamber in the hilt.

"Here, Juhani. You can have this," Bastila said, dropping the crystal into the feline-like woman's palm.

"Ooo, pretty. You have replacement?" Juhani inquired, putting it into her pocket.

"Yes," Shan answered, wiping her forehead of the few beads of sweat that had formed in her concentration. She reached around her neck and pulled off a necklace with a small, translucent box filled with yellow light, barely bigger then her thumb. She carefully twisted the cap off and removed a crystal with the light of sunfire trapped within.

"Never thought I'd see you actually use it. Where you get that one from?"

"My father. He gave it to me when I joined," Bastila answered. "Oh, and look at these,"

Bastila pulled out a small scroll from the pocket in her robes. She unfurled them and Juhani stared at the schematics of a hilt with two emitters.

"Double-Blade?" Juhani said. "Master Zez gave you these?

"Actually, It's my own design. I'm...just unsure as to whether I should actually use it."

"I would wait. Be mindful of style's aggressiveness. There is reason they are known as Sith Lightsabers."

"I know, it's just...single hilts always felt so...limiting. Two blades allow more unpredictability. But I suppose I shall have to wait, until I learn a little more discipline, at least," Bastila replied distantly, pocketing the schematics again.

Juhani nodded and continued working on her own blade-, an one-and-a-half hilt design seemingly made of stone with the face of a sharp-toothed gargoyle. It was lightly engraved and bands of quartz shot through the design, making the center where the crystal chamber was visible, just under the small face. It was her own design, deviating from her Master, Quatra. Only a few years ago, and Juhani could not even have dreamed that she could have constructed such a thing, but so much had changed that her painful old life was now being pushed aside.

And from what she could tell, Bastila had probably the same feelings. But where they would take her was anyone's guess.

The pair continued working in silence.

The next day...

"And here, is our...guest," Atris announced, unlocking the turbo-doors of the guest room they had placed the interloper in.

"You're kidding," Bastila breathed.

The figure rose from the queen-sized bed. He was wearing a smooth brown jacket over a white turtleneck sweater with black trim on the neck, and brown slacks and black leather shoes with black leather gloves. He was tall, like...

...like Malak.

Malak-or Alek, in this case, flashed a full smile at Bastila, His bald head bore no tattoos. His face had the same strong yet round jaw again. His eyes were a deep blue, his light skin did not bare the cold paleness of the Dark Side that her version bore.

"Golly, this place is strange. You guys really are a bunch of ascetics over here, aren't you?" he asked, smiling as he marveled at Bastila's likeness to his own version. He held out his hand. "Alek's the name. Constable rank."

Juhani took the hand, shaking it with authority. "Constable? Is that like Knight rank?"

"From what our guest told us," Atris began , sitting down in a nearby durasteel chair with a blue finish, whose curving design arched over her head, "Constable is equivalent to Padawan. Officer is Knight. Investigator is Master."

"I'm really glad you guys decided to help us out. Things have steadily been getting worse. If we don't act now, we'll have a repeat of what's going on with your universe."

"Explain problem," Juhani stated.

Alek sat down on the bed, rubbing his eyes.

"I have reason to suspect that an interloper from your universe has been smuggling Force-based teaching aids to the Revan in mine. The Jedi Agency is tasked with prosecuting and controlling any non-government approved Force Sensitive activity. Making us the only game in town. We like it that way. The Force is too dangerous to explore on anything more than a cursory basis, and then only for critical instances."

Juhani was listening intently, aware that there could potentially be a massive gulf in understanding. This 'Agency' , from what she could tell, endorsed a policy that was beyond what even the most conservative master on her side would be willing to advocate.

From what Alek had just said, it almost sounded like they were a little...afraid of it.

_Da, this is good, _Juhani thought to herself. _Fear of the Force is the start of Wisdom._

"We've been busting perps lately who were much more skilled than they should have been. I saw an Officer at one point get pushed over eight meters into a wall. We've never ran into criminals or techniques that strong before. The area around Coruscant's been showing instances of dimensional rending, and the only thing the boys in the forensics lab could determine was that someone has been making regular trips to our dimension. Which brings us to Revan," Alek continued. "They tell me you already met yours."

"In passing," Juhani answered for herself.

"My Revan's got a whole bunch of people worried. Some people are afraid he's trying to take The Force and turn it into a religion. Have you ever heard anything so insane?" Alek asked.

No one present dared to shift uncomfortably in front of him.

"Anyway, The higher-ups have had it. Revan has to go. It's rather sad actually. Me and him go back twelve years on the job. We passed the academy together. But the thing is, those techniques from your side of the pond? They've made him and his main supporters too dangerous to arrest. Our own methods just aren't good enough. But if we brought in people more familiar with these abilities, then we figure they could easily trounce such relatively unskilled opponents. So we decided to give our Bastila and Juhani the weekend off, come over here and talk to you. You help us do this, we'll owe you. Big."

"How big?" Atris asked, pulling out another cigar and heating the tip with her pale blue lightsaber blade.

"We'll give you something precious: a schematic of the device that brought me here," Alek answered smoothly. "Think. Your time might go a bit easier against your Revan if you had the resources of another Jedi Order to draw on."

"I agree whole heartedly," Atris said, taking a puff. "You've got yourself a deal, Constable Alek. We'll have them over in a short time."

Alek clapped his hands. "Great! Meet me in the Crystal Cave north of this location. I have everything you need set up."

The Crystal Caves the Jedi used to construct their lightsabers had been locked down ever since the 'Interloper' had arrived. The Council had in fact issued a temporary ban on crossing on enclave grounds to surrounding settlements. No one was around to interfere. Juhani and Bastila both felt curiously unsettled at what was about to take place, yet the epic nature of their task made them all the more resolute in the carrying out of it.

"I have butterflies in stomach, Bastila," Juhani said suddenly in her typical thick accent and as-yet-to-fully-develop syntax.

"You too?" Bastila replied. "Did you ever think this would happen when you became a Jedi?"

"Not in million years," Juhani answered. "Do not worry. I right behind you. We have squid and ale when all this over, my treat."

Bastila's stomach turned. "That's...lovely, Juhani. I'm sure it will be delicious."

"Perhaps we find squid and ale over there, Da?" Juhani asked.

Bastila shrugged. "I don't see why not."

As the pair marched on the sunny, grassy plains to the caves, the entire Dantooine council following behind them, Bastila recited the code to calm herself. As if she didn't have enough to worry with where Revan was concerned, who did not yet know she existed but soon would, now someone wanted her to deal with 'their' version.

She should feel honored, she supposed, that the Masters would trust her with such an unfathomably delicate assignment, yet at the same time she was disquieted by the nature of her task. She was being forced to kill a man whose only crime so far, it seemed, was to think for himself. True he had stolen from the Order, and Bastila knew that if there was one thing her version of the Order did not tolerate, it was thievery, but a death sentence seemed...too harsh. It certainly wasn't how Bastila would have done it, but then again, it was not her place to question the will of her masters. She was still a padawan. Once she was a knight she would be trusted with the way things worked in the real world, and be given more autonomy.

Knights these days had a great deal of autonomy, so long as they adhered to council orders and the Jedi Code, they were otherwise allowed to operate in the field as they saw fit. Some even saw fit to set their own objectives, practice techniques the council might not actually approve of.

Not Bastila. Bastila had always been the straight arrow. She had worked hard to earn their trust, and she had a ways to go, but earn it she would. She would not be another Kreia, or Valia Renn. She knew the value in not breaking rank, unlike Revan. She was, as Zhar had once put it, a "Company Professional". A True Believer.

"Though your mission is to kill the Revan of that dimension, you are reminded to leave as little a footprint as possible. Curiosity will only make things harder for 'Their' Jedi," Atris instructed as they went deeper into the cave system, brightly lit by the floodlights the Knights had placed there to guide people to where the great mystery lay.

Alek was waiting in a large chamber carved out by time and water, holding two duffle bags, which he tossed to Juhani and Bastila. The surrounding crystals glowed in every conceivable hue along the walls. Bastila took note of a dark red vein of rock signifying the forbidden red color.

"The clothing and equipment you'll be wearing over there," Alek explained. "Tailored to your measurements, I hope."

The pair nodded, both choosing a different pillar of rock to change behind. Every one waited until they finally showed themselves.

Bastila was dressed in a dark brown trench coat with a pair of brown slacks and black boots, a white cotton shirt hinted at underneath. a white domino mask covered her face.

Juhani also had a domino mask, but it was red, like the rest of her clothing, save for the black armor on her gloves and shins. Her outfit was tighter fitting, a simple set of red cloth slacks and a red leather jacket that did not seem to have either buttons or a zipper. A gold chain bearing a small shield with a set of numbers hung from her neck. a red beanie cap completed the look.

"Spitting image!" he said merrily. he then handed them both what appeared to be batons.

Bastila examined hers with a clinical attitude. It was a double-ended baton, the handle ridged and simple. The rods were built thin, but sturdy.

Bastila saw a small activation plate in the middle. She pressed it.

Small yellow arcs of electricity raced down its length, and Bastila found herself marveling at the bizarre correlation between this weapon and the design and color of the blade she desired to have eventually. If the council ever let her do this sort of thing again, she'd love to go and see just how common her tendency to want to use staff-like weapons actually was.

Juhani's baton was just as simple, but without the second baton. Little arcs of blue electricity raced down it.

"Not as fancy as that lightsaber-thingy of yours, but it will get the job done, trust me," Alek assured. "I'll have them back by tomorrow,"

"See that you do," Vrook replied crankily. "We 'really' need her."

Alek nodded and led the two padawans to a particular rock face.

A small, boxy projector-like device with a an oil-in-water hue on its steel grey surface sat on a brass-colored tri-pod, light from its focusing lens flickering gently to what appeared to be a shimmering mirror image of the same device on the other side in a darkened area.

"Step right on through," Alek said, gesturing elaborately. The pair sighed, took a deep breath and then both leapt through the wide portal at the same time, Alek following close behind.

And then things promptly went to hell.

As soon as Alek was on the other side of the portal, he clicked a small button on a metal stick he had concealed in his palm.

The devices in both universes shattered as the explosive hidden in them went off at the same time.

Before either Padawan could react to what was now a clear-cut act of betrayal, Alek slammed both of them into a rock wall with a powerful pulse of Force energy.

Both were knocked out before they hit the ground

Bastila's eyes fluttered open a few hours later. She was bound with neural restraints. Juhani was nowhere to be found. She lay on a small mattress.

A flood light hit her. She blinked and stared at an approaching shadow in the light.

"I apologize for the deception," the figure said. It was a man, and his voice was strong and charismatic. Listening to it commanded one's full attention.

She had a terrible feeling she knew who was speaking to her.

"You really do look like her, you know?" the figure continued. "The resemblance is perfect. A pity she won't see reason. With her at my side, this would have all gone much smoother. But you are a treasure unto yourself, my dear Bastila of Universe 11-99. You and your friend will be most helpful in demonstrating what the Force is truly capable of. We're not your enemies, and we don't have to be. We want you to help us reach our full potential."

Bastila glowered as best she was able under the bright lights, the figure above her still indistinct from the rays. For someone who didn't want to be enemies, he sure had a funny way of showing it.

"As my father would put it: Ye know not what ye ask," Bastila replied.

"I ask to become a Jedi Knight like yourself, dear Bastila," the figure replied, shifting away from her. She still couldn't make him out. "You don't understand the situation here. The Mandalorian Cartels are gathering strength. The Galaxy is in need of a Jedi Agency that does more than just police our own. We need people ready to stand for the common good. The agency's commission of Senior Investigators refuses to act, when we might be the one power in the galaxy strong enough to resist. The Cartels will roll over our two centuries old Democratic Union with ease unless they are opposed," the figure continued. "But we need techniques that can actually stand up to them. The old techniques of clairvoyance and healing simply are not enough. We need to be able to do what Alek did. We must learn to fight as you do.

"Teaching you would be like giving you a thermal detonator that's been activated. You don't know the kind of hell you'll bring on your dimension. I do. What happens when you start fighting Dark-Siders?"

"What's a Dark-Sider?" the figure asked, obviously perturbed.

Bastila stared in disbelief. They were still innocent.

She decided not to answer.

"We'll talk later, Bastila. Once you see what's going on, you'll do the right thing, I'm sure of it." The figure rose and left "Thanks for the lightsabers, by the way. Alek knew you'd bring them along as an insurance policy."

"Crap," Bastila swore as the figure left. "And three days from my frakking birthday on top of it."

Bastila tongued the inside of her mouth, searching for the small lockpick she had hidden. Neural restraints canceled out any attempt to unlock it via the Force. Maneuvering, she rolled over on her back, tucked her knees in and slipped her arms under her feet, painfully scuffing her thumbs as she did so.

She sat up, picking the restraints feverishly, until the silver cuffs came undone. Now to find Juhani and split.

The trouble was, where to split to. The device that had linked their dimensions was gone. They had no way back.

Bastila started to panic, but calmed herself as she remembered her history lessons. Jedi had been caught in impossible situations before. And if History had taught anything to Bastila, it was this: when a Jedi put their head to it and placed their trust in the Force, they could be absurdly difficult to bring down. Whether facing down a Sith, sneaking across a heavily guarded sector, Force-related landscape experiments gone horribly awry, or even instances of accidental time travel, Jedi could emerge relatively unscathed. Even Dark Jedi could occasionally beat the odds, her own father-once a soldier who had gone into the apprenticeship of one Darth Kitsun to escape the public hanging of the rest of his team-was testament to what grit and determination could do. He had spent years on the run after eventually mastering his potent mind-control talents and fleeing her castle in the night, breaking the mind of her assassin (A sociopath called The Hyena) in the process. Twenty years ago, he'd met her mother while hiding out as a fortune hunter, and the rest was history.

She WOULD escape, she vowed. There was no way out but forward.

Bastila crept through the rock chamber, past the flood light. It was a simple metal gate with a keypad lock on the front of it.

She gave a small gesture of her hand and the gate's internal locks undid themselves, swinging the gate open.

"Ah, the perks to this job," she said quietly to herself.

Bastila began exploring the cave passages, feeling for Juhani's presence.

She stifled a gasp of excitement as she sensed her close by, slowly stirring from unconsciousness in a small chamber with a man in a brown and white set of business clothes stood guard.

Bastila waved her hand and the guard dropped to the floor asleep. Revan hadn't been kidding when he said their techniques were vastly inferior to Bastila's.

"Juhani!" Bastila hissed, reaching the cathar woman as she rose inside her metal cage.

Juhani suffered an anxiety attack as she saw the bars.

"Cage!" She hissed, the brutal memories of her days as a slave hitting her hard. "Get me out of cage!" Juhani started to hyperventilate.

"Juhani, the code! Remember the code!" Bastila whispered, picking open the lock. Juhani nearly tackled her in her desperate effort to escape her hated confines.

Bastila winced as she felt cold sweat on the Cathar woman's fur. Juhani had a terrified look in her eyes, still breathing hard.

"Juhani, shh, it's okay. You're out now. You're out of the cage. You're out," Bastila said, stroking the top of her friends head as the Cathar shook in her arms.

Finally, Juhani composed herself, standing up and smoothing over her clothes. She put her red beanie back on.

"Come. We flee cave," was all she said, not acknowledging that she'd been almost a total wreck the moment before. "I never go into cage again. That was last time."

"I don't doubt it, friend," Bastila said as Juhani helped her up off the rock floor. "C'mon, let's see just how screwy the scenery is."

Bastila grew concerned as she ventured out onto the yellowed grass of Dantooine's fields.

The sky had an ugly brown smog color, Bastila saw dozens of exhaust towers spewing foul toxins into the air, like belching volcano's. The factory technology must be primitive here: This would have been declared an ecological disaster on her end. Clear violations of the health and environmental code were rampant.

Bastila smelled all manner of chemicals in the air. Juhani was coughing bad: Her nose and lungs were more sensitive.

"Juhani, can you make it until we find shelter?" Bastila asked.

Juhani nodded, wheezing, face scrunched in discomfort. "Da. Just don't take long."

Bastila nodded and scanned the dying landscape. She spotted what seemed to be a spaceport in the distance. It was a few kilometers, but they could walk.

As they walked as quickly as possible on the dying grass, Juhani decided to break the silence.

"So Bastila," Juhani wheezed. "I hear your battle meditation have nasty effects."

"You heard right. The Masters aren't sure why, but every time I use my power, I cause rabies-like symptoms to develop in enemy combatants," Bastila answered, wondering how Juhani was even aware of the side effects to begin with.

"Be not naive, Shan. They know why your meditation no work right. They are Jedi Masters. They 'always' know," Juhani asserted.

"And what do you do for the order, Juhani?" Bastila asked, as she took in the dead fields, curious why her partner would assert such a thing.

"To put it in layman's terms? I am Narc," Juhani answered, not caring if Bastila knew her trade in the order. "Atris would not like it if she knew I tell you this."

"Ah, I see. Your secrets safe with me," Bastila replied, grinning as she turned to stare at Juhani. "Of course, that doesn't change the fact you're a dirty, furry little snitch."

Juhani laughed at the joke. "Ha ha. Funny. Maybe we get back and you microwave some more heads."

The pair laughed at this. This was essential. Moments of levity were important in a situation like this.

"C'mon, before this turns into a buddy comedy," Bastila said. "Still don't know how we're going to con our way onto a transport. You think they give Jedi discounts here like back home?"

"I no bet on it. Order only century old here. Not enough time for good reputation, nyet?" Juhani asked.

"Perhaps. It's just it would make it a great deal-DOWN!" Bastila yelled.

Juhani hit the grass, still coughing, as a pulse of nearly invisible sonic waves raced past where her head had been. Juhani tried to reach for her weapons, only to realize that Alek had stripped them both.

"When I get hands on him..." Juhani growled.

Bastila set up a Force bubble around both of them as the pings from sonic weapons impacted from everywhere.

Twelve people wearing brown and white clothes like Alek decloaked, holding sonic rifles.

One man however, dressed in a brown set of slacks, shoes, and a formal jacket with white pinstripes stepped forward. His face was obscured by a dull bronze mask with a small visor. Bastila made the connection instantly.

"Revan," Bastila said simply.

Revan stepped forward, a baton with purple electricity arcing up and down it gripped in his hand. "There is no escape, Jedi Knight. My Agency Defectors surround you. Your strength, incredible as it is, will eventually wear down. Surrender. I told you I am not your enemy. I only want the same gifts you have to protect the innocent," he finished, that same commanding voice giving her pause as it answered.

"I told you before: You don't comprehend what you're asking me to give you," Bastila answered. She dared not make any more mention of the Dark Side: The last thing this particular galaxy needed was some greedy bastard starting that sort of mess 'here'. She held her arms out stretched, keeping the bubble active.

"I'm asking you to help me end the Agency's monopoly on how the Force should best be used! Once we drive the Cartels out of business, we'll prove our ways beyond a shadow of a doubt-"

"Leaving you the head of a brand new cult," Bastila finished. "I've heard this one before. Out of my own Revan's lips. I said no to 'her' as well. This is not the kind of power you can just 'take' for yourself. There are consequences. Bad ones."

"Then 'explain' them! Let us see what we're doing wrong!"

"I didn't mean it like that. Look, Revan, just let us go. Send us back!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Bastila," Revan replied, shaking his head. "You don't know the kind of effort a guy like me had to shell out, the kind of sweet I had to talk, to bring not just one, but two genuine bonafide Jedi to this dimension. This is not a venture I can afford to leave empty handed. We're barely free over here from the tyranny of the Infinite Empire, I refuse to allow all I know to fall to the Cartels. I promise, once you've helped us get established, I'll send you home. But there's too much work to be done."

Revan came a few more steps forward. Juhani was still on the ground. Her wheezing had gotten more severe.

"Your friend here doesn't look so well," Revan mentioned, gesturing to her. "I can help her get medical attention."

"It is trick," Juhani coughed. "He has snake for tongue."

"I'm not lying, Bastila. I want to help her. Please, surrender," Revan asked, holding out a white gloved hand.

Before Bastila could even contemplate taking the offer, a stream of blue blaster bolts rang out. The deadly pulses of energy nearly hit Revan, forcing him to deflect the bolts with his light-baton. The shots hit several defectors, dropping them.

Bastila grabbed Juhani up, hoisting the rapidly weakening Cathar by the shoulder as she bolted across the field, sonic pulses ringing after her.

She spotted it descending from an angle that made it look like it had come out of the smog-obscured sun. It was an airspeeder, bronze in color, and covered in steel conductors in the front and strange steel rods in the back. The canopy appeared armored. As it settled down in front of her. Bastila spotted the insignia: A blaster and a baton shrouded by a pair of white wings.

The side hatch swung open. Bastila was racing into the back seat with Juhani before she realized it.

She felt the vehicle lift off, sonic pulses hitting its underside.


	2. The Other Side Of The Lake

"Boy, you're lucky I tracked you two in time," the driver said, voice coarse and rough.

Bastila stared. He wore dark brown slacks with many pockets and holsters. His leather jacket was black and tight fitting, with large brass buttons gleaming as one large fold of the jacket covered the other. She'd seen such jackets on republic bomber pilots when they were off duty. His right shoulder bore the symbol on his vehicle. His dark hair was short cut, but ever slightly curled. He sported a distinct, long pair of side burns and he was wearing a larger, thicker domino mask, also bronze in color. He had slightly dark skin, and was also slightly unshaven. Bastila could not make out the color of his eyes, the heavy mask obscured his eyes and nose.

"And you are?" Bastila asked.

"Name's Rae. Rae Nolin. SWAT Officer (Equivalent to Jedi Weapon Master)," Nolin answered, tossing a small bottle of oxygen and a breath mask to her in the backseat. "For your friend."

Bastila panicked as she remembered Juhani, who had gone unconscious. She pressed the oxygen mask to Juhani's face., turning the handle on the bottle.

"Not too much now. Don't wanna burst some vein in her head she might need," Nolin advised.

Juhani's eyes fluttered open after a second. "Mama?" she called out, eyes unfocused.

"Juhani, its Bastila. Do you know where you are?"

Juhani squinted a few seconds before recognition dawned.

"Thank you, Bastila. I'm fine," Juhani said. "We have been made, the two of us."

"You ain't the only one, furball," Nolin said. "I keep tellin' em, 'Don't trust Revan'. 'Revan's running his own game'. Do they listen? Ha!"

"I take it Revan is trusted here?" Bastila asked politely.

"He's the commission's golden boy," Nolin answered as he sped up the vehicle, seeing two more patrol speeders line up behind his from the rear view mirror. "Finest Officer in the whole damn Coruscant Precinct. Tough on lawbreakers. Too ambitious for his own damn good."

"Not fan, I take it?" Juhani asked, sitting up as she sensed the presence of their pursuers.

"Word to the wise, Sister; You don't get that kind of clout in the Department without an intention to pull something major. Everybody trusts him. Everybody but me. But you're just people. They can easily dismiss you as imposters. His supporters will do that. I need hard evidence to move against him. Did you see anything? Anybody?"

Before Juhani could answer, the vehicle was rocked by an impact.

Nolin jerked the controls, sending the speeder careening down. Bastila almost lost her breakfast as the vehicle corkscrewed through the air. She heard the whizzing of vehicle mounted heavy blaster bolts. One punctured the rear transparisteel windshield and tore up the dashboard controls.

Nolin yelled as he pulled up from the dive. Bastila and Juhani felt the lurch of the G-force exerted on the speeder as it pulled up seconds from impact. The pair were banged around badly as the speeder engine shrieked, sparking under the hood.

Nolin pulled out a nickle-plated blaster with engravings on the barrel. He fired through the blasted away windshield in the back. The shots hit one driver, causing him to careen into another. Both tails exploded in mid-air.

"Never try and take on SWAT: We never miss," Nolin said, relaxing as he put his slim weapon back into his jacket. "So," he began turning his head slightly as he piloted. "Are you two really from a parallel universe?"

"How do you know so much?" Bastila asked breathlessly, trying to get her heart to stop pounding.

Nolin grimaced. He focused his attention back on the sky in front of him.

"It all started about a year ago," he began. "Me and my partner Mira? Got an APB over the horn one day in the Coruscant precinct for every officer to make his or her way to the First Intergalactic Bank deep in Little Rodia and just south of Cicero Sector. We'd all gotten calls from panicked bystanders about some perp trashing the place with his mind. It was a disaster. Guy practically brought the ceiling down on the SWAT Unit. My partner's bleeding out, rest of the team's dead, and I'm the only one in a position to do anything," Nolin answered, lowering the vehicle to the surface as they came within range of the spaceport. "Long story short? I eventually drop the guy, two to the chest. Thing is, right before this guy buys the farm, he tells me he escaped from a facility run by Revan, and that people from outside this dimension were aiding him. He'd probably been there to locate information on Revan's spending habits, track the money, but I couldn't prove it."

"We'll help you," Bastila assured the man. "Our mission is unchanged. We're here to kill Revan."

"That so? I want to see the bastard resign in disgrace, but I suppose dead is just as good. But I want evidence first. That way, no one will be able to say I acted on a baseless assumption. They'll expell me otherwise, and the last thing I need is walking around the rest of my days being called 'Exile'."

Juhani and Bastila exchanged a look as Nolin piloted.

When the speeder landed at the spaceport parking area, the three scrambled out of it immediately, following Nolin.

"So, is it really true your version of the Jedi is caught in some sort of never-ending war?" Nolin asked as the trio moved through the throngs of busy soon-to be passengers, the stink from the maintenace pits wafting through smoggy air.

"The Order is charged with opposing those who would misuse the Force," Juhani answered.

"If that is the case, why didn't you simply mow down Revan and his followers?"

"We are not invincible, Officer Nolin," Bastila supplied, "Besides, we are mere apprentices: We have yet to develop our power to its fullest potential, and that is a long way off. A Master-even a knight-would have devastated the area."

"So everything the Senior Investigators have been saying is true. The Force really is too dangerous to safely master."

Bastila wanted to correct him but thought the better of it. A healthy amount of fear was a good thing every now and then.

Juhani, however, chose to disagree. "It takes great discipline."

"Too much discipline, if you ask me. Makes me wonder if this whole 'Jedi' thing is actually worth it. Doesn't seem to do anything but cause problems. I remember when all you needed to do to get by in the Agency was have good reflexes and see into the future slightly. Not anymore. Now we're dealing with a bunch of freaks who have telekinesis. Just thinking of the property damage that alone could cause gives me a headache. And that damnable man wants to make things even worse!" Nolin spat contemptuously

"Be mindful of your anger," Bastila warned. "It will...take you places you don't want to go. Trust me on this."

"Like how?" Nolin asked as he approached an open space hanger amidst the space port clutter and rabble. On it sat a dark colored, delta-wing shaped craft with four large ion engines. A small blue viewport from the cockpit glowed gently and the decal of a green Twi-Lek woman in red lingerie riding a screaming black bird in full dive was highly visible on the front of the craft. Blaster turrets mounted all sides of the craft.

"The Ebon Hawk, ladies," Nolin said. "We're heading to Coruscant. I've gotten a lead but I don't want to tackle it without full back-up. You two up for a fight?"

"I am always up for fight," Juhani answered.

The three went aboard, and Bastila noted the interior had the design features of a military spacecraft, meant for efficiency and not comfort. Benches were hard and amenities few. She sat on a nearby table.

A man stepped out of the cockpit in a brown set of slacks and boot and a garish orange turtleneck sweater. A mottled corncobe pipe stuck out of his mouth and he looked like he had gone a few days without shaving or getting a haircut. Otherwise, he looked robust and healthy, and his skin had a nice tan, complimenting his brown hair.

"Captain Onasi. Used to be in Union Armed Forces, ladies," Onasi said gruffly, holding out a hand. "and you are-?"

"I am Bastila Shan, Padawan of the Jedi Order," Bastila answered. She gestured to Juhani. "This is Juhani of Cathar. also a Padawan."

"What's a Padawan?" Captain Onasi asked.

"I'm an apprentice. Nobody knows where the Order got that word."

Captain Onasi stared at Rae. "Since when did the agency become an order?"

"Long story, and not important," Rae answered.

Onasi shrugged at this and went back into the cockpit.

"Buckle up ladies, this is gonna be a long trip," he called out.

The three sat down.

"He and I fought in the Independence Wars together. Saved him more than once, so I called in a favor. We're in good hands."

"Tell us everything you know about Revan and the capabilities of his followers. We have to know what we are walking into," Bastila stated flatly.

"Where do you want to start?" Rae asked as they all felt the ship lift off.

"Has he displayed any abilities that seem driven by anger, or hatred?" Juhani asked.

Bastila turned to Juhani with a stern look.

"What? We do service to nobody keeping them in dark," Juhani replied.

"Why's that important?" Rae asked.

"Sometimes anger can make someone with the Force very dangerous," Bastila explained. "They're irrational. They make mistakes."

"I haven't seen him display anything like that, really. Why, does anger make you more powerful?"

"No," Bastila answered, telling a half-lie. "It's an empty road, and the price is death before one's time."

"Oh, Nolin answered."But if somebody could control such powerful emotions and harness them, surely-"

"Many have said that," Bastila replied sharply. "They all died. All of them." Again, another half-lie.

"Oh."

"True mastery of the Force requires divesting yourself of emotion, focus on achieving clarity. It's a slow process, and has no immediate benefits," Bastila finished with another half-lie.

"But you two-you two stopped shots being fired at you!"

"A product of years of training. But with technique comes escalation. If we were to teach you anything, eventually you would be facing dissidents. Your galaxy would be dragged into one brutal conflict after another with them. And the stakes get higher and more ridiculous each time," she replied. "Trust us. You're better off as you are."

"But what if the Agency eventually runs into someone who's been experimenting on their own? Some groups came to this one planet a couple of years back. Tython was the name of it I think, and they tried to pool everything they had learned in their own studies. Thank whatever deity is out there that the star Tython orbited unexpectedly went nova, or the Agency could have been swept aside."

"He's right, Bastila. They must know 'something'," Juhani argued.

"To what end?" Bastila asked snappishly. "I am NOT going to be responsible for bringing sin to this galaxy."

"Sin? What you mean?" Juhani asked.

"I mean that I'm not going to be the one whose flawed understanding of the Force ends up leading some poor soul down a twisted path. Let the blame be entirely on them for whatever might arise, but I will have no hand in showing them something I don't even have the wisdom or authority to teach. I think your people have a saying for it: 'Ngujag Awayin Buto Infernu Et Intan-no'

Juhani raised a brow but accepted the argument.

"What'd she say?" Rae asked Juhani.

"It no matter," Juhani replied. "I accept her reasoning."

"But that still leaves the original problem; what if we run into somebody who has done more research? Most Jedi here don't know what the Force is. No one knows how it's transmitted. Some of the investigators think it's some sort of disease or a military experiment that went south and all of us got exposed to it somehow. Does it have an identifiable energy signature? Is it even energy? Most aren't sure they really want to find out. Some answers could really help," Rae argued.

"I'm sorry, Officer Nolin, but some answers are best arrived at on your own," Bastila answered.

"What I no figure out is this," Juhani asked suddenly, perturbed. She stroked her chin slightly as she explained herself. "If Revan already have training aids, why trick us over here? What's the point?"

"Being taught how something should work and then actually seeing it in action are two different things," Nolin replied with a shrug.

Bastila and Juhani exchanged looks for a split second.

"Does he have friends? People who might be in the know?" Bastila asked.

"Well...there is one person. Old Lady K. Has a cozy apartment above this swank little nightclub I use to go to. She's a tough one though. I never managed to get anything out of her. She was his Training Officer. You guys have any mind reading abilities? 'Cause I don't."

"If we concentrate, we may be able to sense surface thoughts. And things aren't the same here. They don't have the proper mental defenses," Bastila answered, turning back to Juhani. "It's worth a shot."

"We'll need weapons," Juhani asserted. "We try finding materials to build lightsabers, Da? They already have ours."

"We'll...I don't see the harm at this point. But what about the crystals? We don't have any."

"Crystals?" Nolin inquired.

"Crystals infused with the Force. They often have a composition similar to quartz," Bastila explained.

"The crystals used in high end monitors and com-links work just as well," Juhani added. "We not know if regular crystals exist here."

"It'll have to do, then," Bastila finished, turning back to Nolin, who was intently paying attention. "Take us to Old Lady K, Officer Nolin. If she knows anything, I'll drag it out of her," Bastila assured him.

Coruscant, Cicero Sector.

"The buildings are...interesting," Bastila said as she stepped off the Ebon Hawk's ramp onto the giant docking pad.

The buildings of this Coruscant were as tall and beautiful as the ones in her own, but these buildings possessed magnificent carvings of faces and animals on all sides, gigantic in scope. Bright neon signs and holograms flashed at designated times and places in the middle of the air as their holoprojectors moved on a methodical path in the air, and strange massive floating globes of transparisteel, done in a clear lattice configuration, roamed the lower parts of the cityscape, bathing the lower parts of the buildings in a ruddy golden light. Dark grey clouds thundered in the distance. A fierce storm was brewing and it would not be long before it was on them. The hover traffic was surprisingly scant compared to her Coruscant, but Bastila figured that since they seemed to be behind in everything, it would take a while before they were choking in air-speeders.

Captain Onasi stepped down the ramp followed by the others. "Been a while since I set foot here," he said, lighting his pipe. "Mind if I come with you, stretch my legs out? I'm pretty handy with a pistol," he said, drawing an ornate blaster with a drum like power cell set in the frame, giving it an appearance similar to a revolver. The metal was done in a blue finish, with a pearl grip.

"Your assistance would be much appreciated, Captain," Bastila said.

Onasi nodded, and the four headed for the turbo-lift that would send them down to the underworks, led by Rae.

"Captain, I have question," Juhani said in the ride down to the underworks, unable to hold back her curiosity. "Why sweater so...orange?"

"Oh, this old thing," Captain Onasi replied nonchalantly. "Morgana loves it when I wear orange. It's her favorite color. I think it makes me look like a particularly sweet and tangy fruit, but when your wife surprises you on your birthday with lingerie and a 'C'mere' attitude, you tend to let the odder things in the relationship slide."

"She's the woman riding the bird on your ship's decal," Bastila added with momentary insight.

"Yeah! How'd you know?"

"I...it's complicated," Bastila answered uneasily.

"That's her?" Juhani asked. She held her fist up to Onasi's chest. "Nice going, dude."

The Captain bumped her fist with his own. "Damn straight."

The turbo-lift stopped and opened, welcoming the four to the bright glitz of the underworks. The streets were packed with rich and poor, alien and human, each seeking their own brand of vice in the maze of casinos, taverns, brothels, drug dens, lining alleys and main roads. The golden light from above shined on all, giving the scene of social ill more bright than it actually deserved.

"By the Force," Bastila spoke above the chatter and hustle of the crowds. "Doesn't your agency do anything about this, Officer?"

"We're only tasked with apprehending violators of the Sensitivity Act, which forbids non-government Force-Users from attempting to study. If a Force User wants to go legit, the Agency is the only way," Nolin answered. "The Government is working really hard to try and develope a cure, get some measures passed."

"What measures?" Juhani asked.

"Y'know, giving the parent the legal option to perform genetic therapy on the fetus to prevent sensitivity. It's very safe, I'm told."

Part of Juhani wanted to yell that the Force wasn't a disease, but what Bastila had said to her earlier-in her own language, no less-stayed her voice.

"They do that where you're from?" Nolin asked as they pushed through the crowd.

"No. Children who are discovered are-never mind. I've spoken too much," Bastila replied, stopping herself. She felt like she was constantly walking on eggshells with Nolin, fearing one small slip could have terrible consequences for this galaxy.

Besides, it wasn't as though she could mention it without remembering how she had been recruited, the terrible day her mother had shoved her into the arms of the Jedi Master sent to collect her.

Just thinking about it brought anger. Anger that Bastila knew was wrong for a Jedi, but she felt it none the less.

The surprised cries of people in front of her forced her away from the painful memory and she struggled to contain her shock.

She was floating a few meters off the ground in place.

Quickly regaining control of her power, she dropped herself back to the ground.

Everyone was now staring, whispering.

Onasi decided to be Damage Control.

"It's okay folks. We're street magicians," he called out.

"Why is she wearing agency clothes?" a woman in the crowd asked.

"Part of the act," he answered.

After a few moments of deciding amongst themselves, the crowd started nervously clapping, applauding the 'trick'.

Juhani took Bastila gently by the arm. "What happened?" she asked calmly as the crowd went back to their business.

"I'm not sure," Bastila lied, realizing her anger had allowed the Dark Side to fuel her power.

_Bloody Dark Side, _she thought bitterly. It never gave anybody the day-off.

The four continued down the street, not realizing a man in a pinstripe suit and full mask with a t-shaped visor had been watching them the whole time. He disappeared into the crowd, waiting for the right moment to act.

to be continued...

Coruscant, parallel universe

The nightclub was in full form as Juhani walked in along with Bastila, Captain Onasi, and officer Rae Nolin. Juhani and Bastila still wore the disguises this universe's version of Alek had given to help them pass for locals.

Juhani's clothing was red, a set of simple red slack and a tight fitting red leather jacket complimented by black armor on the gloves and shins of the red boots. She also wore a red domino mask and beanie. An officer badge hung around her neck bearing the sword and wings symbol of the Jedi. The Cathar woman's fur had rippled with unease since arriving in this parallel dimension under quite literally the worst circumstances possible, her golden eyes constantly scanning for signs of danger. Bastila sported a set of dark brown slacks and boots., a brown trench coat with a white cotton shirt underneath and a white domino mask. The human Jedi ran her tongue across her braces in distress, still having no idea how she was going to get herself and Juhani home. Her brown hair was hanging limply from her scalp in a long ponytail, her beige skin dirty with the soot of Coruscants underworks. Her face was scrunched like a kinrath pup as she made her way further into this nightmare. Captain Onasi was unshaven, and looked like he hadn't gotten a hair cut either, but most were distracted by the loud, garishly orange turtleneck he was sporting drowning out his brown trousers and black shoes. A corncob pipe stuck out of his mouth as he kept one hand close to his antique blaster pistol. The human pilot had volunteered to accompany them, knowing he was part of history in the making, what with two interlopers from another universe arriving to kill a would be tyrant. He ran a hand through his brown hair, the difficulty of his task setting his mouth into a grim, gormless expression.

The last, Rae Nolin, a true native of this dimension, sported brown slacks that had many pockets and two spare holsters, each containing a spare snub-nose blaster. The collapsible light-baton the Jedi of this dimension sported rather than lightsaber was clipped to his belt, utilitarian in design. His tight fitting leather jacket was black, with oversized brass buttons and an upper corner of the front he allowed to hang unfastened. The right shoulder bore the Order's symbol in a blue and white color scheme. He wore a heavier, metal version of the domino mask that obscured his eyes in shadow. His hair was short cut but slightly curled and he had long sideburns. His skin was slightly darker in tone than Carth's, and he was slightly unshaven. His hook nose took in the scents of the nightclub, the Twi-leks on stage doing the infamous "Fan Dance", teasing all that watched with two giant fan constructs composed of feather covering very nude blue and green and red figures. A band of Bith dressed in white formal wear played corellian saxophones in another area of the large club.

The club was classy, lit by candles rather than artificial fixtures, the smoke from the dancer's stage mixed with the cigar smoke, creating a certain pungent ambiance across porcelain white walls and the red carpet covering the floor. A grand chandelier, also lit by candle, hung over everything, taking up the center of the arching mother-of-pearl ceiling.

It was relatively quiet, most watched the burlesque show, making idle conversation, or hung around at the bar.

The four began making their way through a crowd.

"You guys find a table. I'm gonna ask the barman if Old Lady K is upstairs," Rae said to them, leaving to head to the giant bar set into an alcove in one part of the hexagonally designed establishment.

Bastila, Juhani, and Onasi nodded, each making their way to a table close to the stage.

Before they could sit down, Juhani spotted an unfamiliar man with light brown hair and light skin in a navy blue pinstripe formal suit wave them over from a table that had a semicircular giant bench with leather upholstery. His eyes were a light blue and his hair was slicked back and combed, impeccably parted at the same time. Next to him sat a muscular woman in her late thirties, with short cut white hair and almost pale skin and blue eyes, clad entirely in a black leather catsuit that squeaked as she shifted in her seat. She also wore a black leather cap, like something a military officer would wear. All things considered, she was very beautiful.

The plain black lacquered katana gleamed in its sheath as it rested against her seat. Bastila recognized the woman instantly. It was Arren Kae. Her own version had recently been expelled for hiding the fact that she had gotten pregnant over a decade ago and bore the child. The scandal had nearly destroyed Senator Yusanis' career.

Bastila didn't recognize the man, but she had no choice but to talk to them now, and pray they weren't too invasive.

Carth tapped them on the shoulder. "I'll go case this joint for trouble. Hollar if you need me."

Bastila and Juhani nodded and let Onasi wander off to play lookout. The pair took a seat opposite Arren and the strange man.

The man pulled out a small square silver case, removing a cigarette and jamming it onto a long black stem while Arren ignited the man's vice with her lighter.

The man took a long draw, and was courteous enough to blow the smoke away from them.

"A pleasure to meet you, ladies. Names Jack. Jack Rand. Won the election for District Attorney," the man spoke casually, offering a hand.

"Good for you, Mr. Rand. Was there something you needed?" Bastila inquired politely, taking the hand and giving it a firm shake.

"I saw you walk in with an old acquaintance of mine. I got curious. You two friends with Officer Nolin?" Jack asked, taking a puff.

"We just met. To be honest, we're from out of town," Bastila answered.

"WAY out of town," Juhani added with a small grin. She then stifled a yelp as Bastila kicked Juhani in the ankle under the table.

"Out of town, huh? Where you from, Mimban? Klatooine?" Jack continued, eyes occasionally sliding to the burlesque dancers on stage.

"Talravin. My friend is from Cathar," Bastila answered. "Have we done something wrong, Mr. Rand?"

"Oh, goodness no. Yet, at least. But the Agency still has a great deal to prove to a lot of people that it can keep us all safe from the freaks. And I think it prudent to warn you that one is judged by the company they keep. If you are thinking of counting Officer Nolin among your friends, you might want to make a, shall we say, 'vital reassessment'. He's a troublemaker. Steps on a lot of toes. You don't want to be associated with a fellow like that," Jack finished, taking another drag of his cigarette and passing it to Arren. The man seemed perfectly at ease.

"Has Nolin been involved in something illicit, Mr. Rand?" Bastila inquired, now curious.

"If you call being a fanatic illicit than yes. Miss Arren here knows what I'm talking about. But I think I'll let you see it for yourselves, just so you know I'm not blowing smoke in your direction."

Before Bastila could say a thing, Jack held up a hand. Arren pulled out a Pazaak card with a positive five on its face. On the back of it was a small sequence of numbers and letters.

"My holo-number. If you see him...do anything...give me a call. I can make it worth your while," Jack finished. "I pay my debts. The only good thing being a gambler ever taught me."

"I shall consider it, Mr. Rand," Bastila answered, wanting to end the conversation as quickly as possible. The man had a look of cold calculation that made her nervous.

Everything about him screamed crooked.

"Good. And speak of the Corellian Devil!" Jack exclaimed good naturedly as he spotted Rae sauntering up to them. Bastila watched Arren's right hand slip casually closer to the Katana.

"Jack," Nolin spoke gruffly. "What're you doing here, Jack?"

"Having a drink. What're you doing here?" Jack laughed, seemingly unworried as he reclined in the seat. "It's a free planet, Nolin. I can go where I want."

Rae regarded Arren. "Nice example to set for our daughter, Arren."

"Oh, come now, Rae, you know you like this," she replied in a sultry, silky tone. "I'll get custody back. It's only a matter of time."

"You'd be surprised how long that matter of time can be for a hit-woman," Rae replied casually before gesturing to Bastila and Juhani. The three walked away.

"How you know that man?" Juhani asked.

"Jack Rand was an unsophisticated card shark that was drafted by the Union during the Independance Wars. Strangely he excelled and went into military intelligence, helping identify Force-Users for either conscription or restriction, if they didn't want to work for the agency. He was so good at tracking down Force Users, they called him the 'Jedi-Hunter'. Arren used to be an agency recruit before Jack stole her and put her in that damn catsuit as his own personal hench-woman. And you better believe that bastard's sleeping with her," Nolin answered bitterly. "He runs half the rackets in this city. Even the senior investigators won't touch him."

"I'm sensing unresolved issues," Juhani replied apprehensively.

"If she'd just stuck with it...she could have been a really great Jedi. But she loved power and money more than the Force, and forsook its path," Nolin said out loud, and not really to her in particular.

Bastila's gaze darkened for a split second before she shook off a discomforting idea. She directed their attention back to their all important task.

"You've located Old Lady K?" Bastila asked.

"Yeah. She's making tea right now. I'll take you upstairs," Nolin said, turning his gaze back to Arren.

"Man, Bastila, that divorce must have been NASTY," Juhani said under her breath to her fellow padawan.

Old Lady K's apartment was cluttered. Books lay stacked on the old wood floor, and dozens of unfinished paintings adorned the walls, most of them portraits of humans and aliens she did not recognize. The two sofas were old and moth eaten., covered by equally old and ragged blankets. The air was musty, and Juhani saw wood carvings of animals lining a shelf above the fireplace in the living room, which had paint peeling off the walls. Carth had followed the three up the stairs after they had found him again.

The old woman sat in one of them, wearing a simple, long dress that went past her ankles, draping over sandal-covered feet. The dress was sky blue with a purple polka-dot pattern. She wore heavy, dark round sunglasses, her face creviced and pitted like a mountain. A small right hand clasped a weathered old walking stick with a curved grip. Her left hand had been replaced by a hook.

Bastila did not react to the fact she was staring at Kreia. She simply went along with the funny joke the Force seemed to be playing, although by this point the Force's humor was entirely lost on her.

"Rae? That you?" The old woman crooked.

Rae nodded. "It's me, K. I brought the guests."

"Good, good. Have a seat. I made tea," Old Lady K crooked in her ancient voice, gesturing to the caffa table with four steaming cups of amber tea in white china.

"I would have made more, but my arthritis limits me these days. Damn bones won't cooperate. My eyes even less, though that's due more to my fondness for bathtub gin than anything," the old woman joked.

"You actually went blind drinking?" Juhani whispered out of amazement.

"Well yes and no. I showed up to work drunk. That's how I ended up going blind. I was battlin' the hangover from the seventh Corellian hell when I tried to bring down that one perp. You know the one, Nolin."

"Oh, yeah. She ran into this perp. Some kinda burn victim. Had one good eye. Loaded to the max on pain killers and amphetamines. She puts five in his chest, but he keeps coming. When he finally got a hold of her, she was too dizzy to defend herself," Rae explained. "Heard this all second hand though."

"Bastard gouged my eyes out and crushed my right hand under a speeder he had overturned. I was promptly fired. But I'm pleased to say I never touched the sauce afterward, so there's that."

"That's awful!" Captain Onasi uttered in stunned horror.

"But it sure beats a regular job," the old woman answered, cracking an unpleasant grin as she finished her formerly steaming cup of tea in one gulp. "So tell me, why are you two ladies here?"

"We're here on a mission of galactic importance," Bastila answered. "We need you to tell us anything you might know about your former protege, Revan."

"Revan? I was his Training Officer, but he hasn't sought me out in years. I'm just a simple old woman living above a nightclub nowadays. Why would you think I would know his business?"

"Miss, it's important. Revan is doing something very dangerous. A lot of people could be hurt."

"A lot of people are going to be hurt by the Mandalorian Cartels unless someone acts. What's the difference?"

"The...Cartels are a momentary problem. If Revan gets away with whatever he is planning, he could plunge all Force Users into a vicious, possibly eternal religious war," Bastila answered, daring to speak the words all Force Users in her dimension had not the courage to say out loud but always kept in their deepest, darkest resentments over what the Force had turned their lives into.

"War will exist as long as civilization draws breath. Stop a war from happening? One might as well appeal to a thunderstorm," Old Lady K countered good naturedly.

"It's a conflict our kind will regularly cause. At every opportunity."

"You cannot condemn an entire group for the actions of a corrupt few."

"The choice of one is the choice of us all."

"Ah, I see that the Agency has now resorted to collective guilt," Old Lady K chuckled. "Take it from a woman who knows, girlie: The Agency is an organization hampered by both fatalistic attention to protocol and by endemic short-sightedness. And that is the assessment of a blind woman, I might add."

"It's just caution, there is a reason we take things slow."

"And what happens when you take things so slow that no-one can ever truly get ahead, explore their potential?" the old woman wondered out-loud. "But alas, my point is moot. I have not been in contact with him, so our philosophic debate is un-needed." She reached for her cup, pouring another steaming helping. She rose, feeling the wood statues on the shelf above her fireplace.

"Miss, Revan is putting a great deal of lives in jeopardy. He doesn't have the wisdom, or experience to control the power he is seeking. It will destroy him, be certain of that," Bastila asserted.

"The future can change. And how can you tell he will be irresponsible with this...power? To be honest, I'm not even really certain what it is we're discussing. Is Revan in some kind of trouble with the law?"

Bastila detected the lies instantly. And from those lies she inferred a few things. One, Revan had never ceased contact and maintained a regular rapport with her. Two, the story she had told about losing her sight was a falsehood, and she had lost the hand through some other means.

Third, Kreia was not blind.

She had given herself away pouring the tea. The blind, when pouring something, kept one of their fingers on the inside of the cup to avoid overflow. Kreia didn't do that, meaning either she had very good ears, or she could see very clearly.

"You're lying," Bastila said. "I can feel your dishonesty."

Old Lady K stared.

"Indeed you are powerful, as Revan has foreseen," The old woman spoke with authority, her doddering demeanor gone. She rose, sturdy and firm, all weakness gone.

Bastila and Juhani backed off as she felt the stirrings of the Force erupt in the old woman.

A gust of wind that came from nowhere dislodged the stacks of books. Onasi jumped.

"And now we shall see what your Jedi ways are capable of," Kreia declared, flinging the four with a gust of telekinesis.

Bastila and Juhani instinctively leapt back up, only to remember that Revan had confiscated their lightsabers earlier. Rae was already on the ground, struggling to free his pistol as Old Lady K flung him backward into the kitchen.

Bastila and Juhani both let off a precise pulse of Force energy that slammed into the old woman, knocking her to the floor. She wheezed, but then scrambled back up, summoning her cane to her with telekinesis.

She twisted the curved handle of the cane in the opposite direction, apparently having exhausted her strength with the Force. Bastila could tell already that her technique was inferior, driven by instinct rather than experience. That said, they were very good instincts.

Bright green electricity raced up two sides of the cane, forming a sword shape at the tip. The Jedi pair could tell even from their limited exposure to this universe's weapons that this was all together different from the weak light batons they had been given. The arcs of energy seemed too thick and focused, and the disquieting low hum of the weapon was all too familiar to them.

"An Arc-Sword!" Carth exclaimed. "Aren't those illegal?"

"VERY illegal," Rae gasped, catching his breath and marching out of the kitchen with his pistol drawn. "Drop the sword, K. Or I drop you."

"Years ago, I left the Agency to follow a higher path to the truth of the Force. I am too old to master its secrets, but it is not too late for Revan to guide the Agency down its true path," Kreia answered. "The cartels must be stopped or we shall all pay the price for the Agency's lack of vision."

"You'll destroy your dimension," Juhani spoke firmly. "Surrender. We have no wish to fight you."

Old Lady K raised her weapon only for Bastila to stick out her hand and encase the old woman in a stun field. Whirling energies in a light purple hue dance on the surface of her skin, rippling gently like drops hitting a puddle of water.

"The good 'ol stun power. Never gets old," Bastila said out loud, approaching the old woman.

"Where is he? Who are his friends? Where does he go?" she asked simply, releasing enough of the energy fields hold over her to speak.

"With such power as you command, surely you must see how desperate the situation here is. The galaxy rots in corruption. Only Revan is taking a stand-"

"He'll lead you all to damnation," Bastila interrupted. "Tell. Me. Where."

"So you would truly strike him down, even if he could save our galaxy? What gives YOU the right to decide whether or not we're ready?" Old Lady K asked struggling in the field.

"Because I know what happens when it ends up in the wrong hands. Talk. I will not ask again."

Old Lady K remained silent.

Frustration then made Bastila do something.

"Tell me," she said with naked command, her voice leaping an octave and gaining an echo as her eyes started glowing orange.

"I...I won't. I can't. He's too important."

"_Tell me. You know you want to. I command this. Tell me. You cannot avoid telling the truth. Tell me. Tell meeee..." _Bastila trailed off in that echo voice.

"I...I...what're...you...doing..."

_"I command you to tell me," _Bastila repeated.

"Ask for lunch money while at it. I hunger," Juhani added.

Bastila turned to Juhani, still with the orange glow in her eyes. "Hush. You'll ruin it. Besides, that would violate the code."

"What happens in parallel universe, stays in parallel universe," Juhani replied coyly.

Bastila sighed and turned back to Kreia.

_"You WILL tell me everything you know...and you will give us lunch money. Not..not TOO much mind you...but a decent amount. Y'know, something we could buy a sandwich with."_

"Could I get pickles on mine? I love pickles," Carth asked. Rae pinched the bridge of his nose at the absurdity of the situation.

Bastila shrugged, still maintaining her mind control power. "I don't see why not."

Kreia's will collapsed finally.

"I...I will do as you ask," she spoke, eyes glazed. "Revan has a girlfriend who lives in the upper levels. I only direct Jedi defectors to our hidden bases. If anyone knows more, it'll be her. He trusts her with everything. But he has a bodyguard for her. A man by the name of Bandon. And you will find credits on the window sil in by bedroom. More than enough to buy a sandwich for all of you."

_"Good. Now slleeeeppp..." _Bastila commanded, releasing the stun field.

The old woman swooned, dropping to the ground.

They had cleaned out Kreia's apartment afterward, seizing holo-discs and anything related to Revan, pouring over them obsessively as they sat on the couch, letting Kreia doze fitfully on the cold floor. Revan had been maintaining a number of bases that were quickly being converted into a familiar temple set-up. For a second and no more, Bastila felt disquiet at her mission, but she pressed on, ignoring the similarities. They even found the address for Revan's girlfriend: A Twil-Lek named Yuthura lived in an expensive condo next to the Senate Tower, room 11-38.

"She's our best lead so far. And if she knows as much as Kreia claims..." Rae let the sentence hang.

"Then that is our next stop," Bastila replied.

The smoke grenade that was tossed in from the window took all by surprise; Juhani's eyes teared up instantly.

The soldiers filed expertly in the chaos, surrounding the four. Before Bastila could do anything, she felt the cold barrel of a blaster press against her head.

"Try anything, freak, and I paint the wall with your skull," the grizzled old voice of a man hissed to her.


	3. Things No One Should Know

All four of them were marched out through the night club by the soldiers, all of whom were dressed in light brown trousers and shoes, both expensive, a white cotton t-shirt with some sort of protective vest thrown over it and a mask with a t-shaped visor made of a dark, glossy material. Their blaster rifles bore a similarity to bolt-action slug-throwers, save for the unmistakable glow of red blaster energy on the inside of the barrels, each of which had a small knife affixed to it. They also carried each a type of red-dot-sighting system. People mumbled and shrank away as the group passed.

The Mythosaur skull emblazoned on their left sleeve instantly let Bastila know who they were. Elephant like with a large set of teeth and tusks, only one culture used the symbol so extensively.

Mandalorians. Otherwise known as the Jedi Order's favorite sparring partner when no Sith were around. The rivalry between the two groups had risen to a fever pitch in the Exar Kun War, with the Mandalorians seeking only to prove themselves the greatest warriors in the galaxy, and the Jedi seeking only to humble them in combat. The tactic, at least on the Orders end, had never worked. Mandalorians were next to impossible to humble.

Juhani saw Jack and Arren rise from their seat and approach the armed team led by a taller Mandalorian in a pinstripe suit and wide-brimmed slouch hat. A light red blaster-proof vest stretched over the burly man, whose face was concealed by an engraved face mask with a t-shaped visor like the others. He held a dark grey repeater with a drum clip and foregrip that used only iron sights. The look was completed by imeccably polished leather shoes.

"Canderous, I hope you have a good explanation for this," Jack warned the burly figure.

"We paid up this month, Jack, so what do you care?" the Mandalorian leader wondered, tone dismissive.

"Paying for my gambling problems and running a few casinos without a license is one thing. Kidnapping people in broad daylight is something else," Jack replied casually, clearly not caring if people heard him or not. "Of course, we could always leave the decision up to Miss Arren if you would prefer..."

Arren, licking her lips, pulled out the Katana from its sheath slightly, directing its gleam to Canderous.

"C'mon, Jack, old boy, you really wanna start 'another' feud over something so silly as unlawful restraint? Remember the last time I tried to blow up your transport. You're lucky the freak you're sleeping with spotted the bomb."

"And you're lucky your poison taster does his job so well. How many have you had to replace, by the way?"

Canderous held up his hands placatingly.

"Jack relax. I'm not going to execute them. I just wanna talk. Honest."

"You're still kidnapping them," Arren pointed out in her sultry manner.

"I'm not kidnapping them. I'm simply aggressive in my escort," at this, Canderous hefted his repeater to them threateningly. "Isn't that right folks. Mind you, it's inadvisable to say anything other than 'Yes'."

"Yes. Absolutely. He is escorting us. That is what he is doing," Bastila said quickly and tonelessly, trying to control her stress at how quickly the situation had turned on them as she directed her gaze to Jack and Arren pleadingly.

Jack shook his head. "I'll be pulling for you, miss, but that's about all I can do. Good luck."

"You get killed Rae, and I get custody," Arren said mockingly to Nolin. "This days lookin' better and better."

"Screw you," Rae said under his breath as the soldiers marched them out of the club.

The four were shoved into a long black stretch speeder with and armored canopy and an auto-targeting blaster turret on top. The interior was dark also, but with soft plushy seats covered in a blue fabric with the Mythosaur skull stitched in silver thread at the center.

One soldier kept a blaster pointed at Bastila's head at all times.

"We were monitoring your conversation with the old hag. That's why we're taking such precautions. Can't have you digging into our skulls, now can we?" Canderous asked, sitting back in a seat.

"What do you want?"

"I want the exact same thing you seek: The death of Revan," Canderous answered, clasping his hands together. "The Agency is not the only group concerned about the freaks. Mandalore doesn't want any hiccups when we make our final push to overthrow the Union. If Revan is mad enough to try and weaponize the Force, he has to be stopped."

Though Bastila in part was relieved that someone besides her at last saw the need to eliminate him, she was disappointed to find that the only people agreeing with her were the ones who stood the most to gain from crushing the Jedi.

"Why do Mandalorians want to overthrow Union?" Juhani asked in her still undeveloped syntax.

"Are you blind? It's our time!" Canderous chuckled. "Conflict's the natural state of things. What we Mandalorians do is simply carry this truth to its natural conclusion. We embrace it. It's made us strong, made us the greatest warriors in the Galaxy. We'll soon be running everything. All the brothels, the Casino's, the drug dens. Hell, Congress will answer to us. We'll use all these aspects you and the Union would discard simply doesn't fit into your world view. A firm hand and vision is needed, not the half-meant uttering's of some government that only plays at being a democracy."

"If you wanted Revan dead, why not simply let us go and let us carry on our task?" Rae demanded."

"Because I have a use for you. You can make anybody tell you anything, and Revan has knowledge I desire. I won't stop you from killing him, but I do ask that you recover the location of a Rakatan Space Factory. My spies suggest he's been using this decommissioned station to produce all the material he needs to fuel his splinter from the agency."

"And why would I do this for you? You're not giving me anything in return," Bastila snapped in contempt.

"You think the threat of weaponized Force Users will end simply with Revans death? He has thousands of supporters, all of whom will be more than willing to make him a martyr. And I can assure you that if he dies a dozen more groups will spring up in his name. I'm planning to eliminate them all, of course, Princess, but if you help me, I may be inclined to act sooner rather than at my own discretion. You think you four are going to be able to breach wherever he's hiding on your own? You'll be outnumbered an hundred to one, count on it. But if you agree to help me, I'll provide you with an entire legion of my best troops for the final assault."

"You can't trust this guy, Bastila," Rae spoke suddenly. "He'll betray you at the drop of a hat."

"You'd be absolutely right if this were any other circumstance, Jedi. But this time you're wrong. I have just as much to lose here. The Mandalorians can't afford the Jedi gaining a real figurehead. Or turning into Sorcerers," Canderous finished. He held out his hand to Bastila. "So, Jedi, we got a deal?"

"Deal," Bastila said quickly, taking the hand.

"Excellent," Canderous replied in cool fashion. "I'll have my men drop you off at those apartments you were going to visit. Have fun-"

A blazing red Arc-Sword plunged through the canopy, sending little sparks as the weapon melted it's way through just like a lightsaber would have.

Canderous' repeater was out instantly, firing through the roof along with every other soldier, shredding it off the speeder as it sped through the air traffic of Coruscant's as-yet-to-develop cityscape.

The Arc-Sword erupted from the bottom of the craft and Bastila heard the fuel alarm whine as the vehicle tumbled from the sky.

Bastila didn't remember if it was Rae or Onasi that pulled her from the wreck half conscious. All that she knew was that a searing pain went through her ribs. Too much pain for her to really concentrate on healing the wound with the Force. Canderous, Juhani, and Carth were behind the crashed speeder. They had landed on a docking platform on the upper towers and Canderous and the remaining soldiers were firing at someone who expertly dodged all their shots seconds before they could hit, gradually getting closer. He was tall, bald, but with a dark goatee. He wore a silvery blaster-proof vest over a black shirt and black slacks and boots. His skin was a healthy beige, and he had an expression of utter determination in his milky grey eyes as he expertly deflected with his double bladed Arc-Sword. The platform was in the open air, and a wind that smelled of cinnamon blew in from the east. They could see the massive public park still under construction that would consume a quarter of the planet's surface when it was done.

Bastila squinted in recognition. Bandon. On her side of the pond, Bandon had been thrown out automatically for following Revan, along with her general, Valia. Here it seemed he was carrying on the tradition.

She could already hear the sirens in the distance. Either the Agency or average police would show up soon. The storm was darker and closer in the sky than it had been when they had arrived, and she could feel the shivers in the air that indicated that rain would soon fall.

"Juhani!" Bastila wheezed out as Juhani exerted a powerful Force-Push in Bandon's direction, which he had already dodged seconds before the energy had really left her. His ability to predict danger was impressive, and hinted at the strengths the Jedi of this universe had practiced.

"Yes?" she said, going over to her fellow padawan who lay on the ground, nearly immobile.

"Toss the bloody speeder at him," Shan choked out, coughing blood.

"Are you sure? Rae-he could learn something."

"There isn't much to learn when crushing a person with a crashed vehicle," she rasped. "Do it."

Juhani shrugged amidst the chaos. "Okay. You say so..."

Juhani yelled for everyone to get out of the way and then lifted the speeder up and hurling it with as much speed as she could impart.

Bandon, surprised, flipped over the rushing vehicle, evaded Juhani's attempt to telekinetically grasp him and guarded with his weapon.

"Such power!" he exclaimed in a husky voice. "Revan was right. You two are the future of the Order."

"Revan is tyrant. He will be corrupted by quest for knowledge," Juhani replied calmly, disquieted at what seemed to be an unusually high skill in practical far sight. Did all Jedi in his dimension possess this gift?

"You cannot know that for certain, girl. We all make our own choices. We are not slaves to destiny. You act against him out of fear. Tell me, why do you seek his death so fervently?"

"To be honest...I just do job. Bastila insists his death is for your own good."

"She does not have the right to decide what is in our best interests. You disappoint me, sister Jedi. You of all people should understand our struggle."

"I see, and your Revan had no right to trick us into parallel dimension, keeping us prisoners and separated from all we know so he could prosecute war against Mandalorians."

"It's for the greater good. It's all for the greater good," Bandon said more to himself than Juhani as he charged.

As Bastila had with Old Lady K, Juhani performed a stun technique, immobilizing him in mid-charge.

"Hey Bastila, you right! This trick not ever get old!" she exclaimed happily.

"Lovely, Juhani," Bastila wheezed on the ground. "Simply lovely. Knock 'em out for me, would you?"

Juhani approached the stunned and now awestruck Bandon.

"Sorry for this. Only doing job..." Juhani spoke quietly before slamming her fist square into Bandon's jaw. He crumpled to the ground as she released the energy fields hold.

Bastila awoke with a groan, stretched out on a queen-sized bed, a blanket thrown over her. The room was small and cramped, and devoid of all but bare needs.

Juhani sat in a chair right next to the bed. She was fiddling with what appeared to be a ball of yarn. Uncomfortably, Bastila detected what almost sounded like _purring _coming from Juhani's throat.

Juhani sensed Bastila watching and quickly dropped the ball out of embarrassment.

"I can explain, Bastila," she began quickly. "Cathar have...affinities for certain items. For some, it shiny coins. Others, yarn. I am yarn person. You know how it is, wanting to compulsively play with string..."

The pair stared at each other in an awkward silence that went on for a few seconds longer than it should have.

"Not really, no," Bastila said after a few seconds.

Juhani scratched the back of her head before changing the subject. "It no matter. Rae heal you. You took bad damage in crash."

Bastila's eyes became beady. "You let Rae heal me?"

"Bastila, I not skilled healer. Rae is. All Jedi of this universe skilled healers. It one of only two disciplines they use. Other is Far sight."

"How long?"

"Pardon?"

"How long did you let him heal me?" Bastila demanded, cold fear racing through her body.

"All the way. Two hours. Why?"

Bastila didn't answer. She had sunk her consciousness deep into her own Force connection, hoping not to find anything.

Instead, her eyes snapped open. "Dammit," she hissed.

"What is wrong?" Juhani asked, now out of sincere concern.

"How badly was I injured?"

"You had massive internal bleeding. If Rae had not acted, you would be dead."

"Juhani, we're bonded. Rae has created a Force bond in saving my life."

Juhani went wide-eyed. "I-I'm sorry, Bastila! Forgive me, I did not know!"

"It is alright, Juhani. It isn't common knowledge that a bond can be created like that. But it now means We must be much more careful around Rae. We must find a way to sever the bond, or he could start to learn my techniques simply by being in proximity to me," Bastila uttered.

Without even meaning to, she had put the galaxy in great danger all by herself.

Bastila was soon up and about, slipping on the Agency clothes she had come into this dimension with. Juhani had the clever idea of salvaging all the spare parts and electronics from the crash along with Bandon's now-disassembled Arc-Sword, spreading them out on a caffa table in the sparse apartment's living room, which was noticably cleaner than Old Lady K's had been. The shutters were closed, keeping out the amber lights of the twinkling city. No lights were turned on except for a small lamp on the floor. Carth sat on a couch in front of a holoprojector, Canderous next to him as he flipped through all the news frequencies. Yet no report of the deadly crash surfaced.

"I don't understand. Juhani threw a freakin' _speeder _at that guy. There had to be a few local cameras that spotted it," Carth grumbled in confusion.

"Jack Rand probably set up interference when he heard. Can't risk spreading a mass panic with the freaks," Rae grumbled, taking a sip of caffa that another Mandalorian soldier offered him.

When Bastila entered the living room, Rae left the kitchen and approached her.

"Something changed when I healed you," he spoke quietly. "What was it?"

"You're feeling the bond already. That isn't good. Rae, you've placed yourself in terrible danger helping me as you did," Bastila asserted. "You've created a sort of telepathic link, one that is not easily severed."

"Does it have any advantages?"

"No," Bastila flat out lied.

"You're lying. I can feel it. Feel your thoughts."

"What the hell is it with you freaks?" one of the Mandalorians asked, overhearing. Juhani shushed him, however.

"Rae...I'm not fit to teach you anything, even with the bond. I could end up making things worse, don't you see?"

"Things are already bad now. His followers are growing more powerful. You felt it in Bandon-wait, how did I know his name was Bandon?" Rae asked, confused, shaking his head.

"If the bond is already that intense, you must have felt the barest hint of Jedi teachings," Bastila whispered. "We have to sever this bond, Rae. Soon."

"Is it really so bad if I know a little of what you know? Isn't it better if I learn to control it? So I don't risk harm to others with what I already know from you?"

"Wait, how much do you know, exactly?" Bastila asked, frowning.

"Uh...a...a set of...movements or something. Elegant. Meant for a sword or something," Rae answered, clasping the side of his head. "I-I think I could move something if I pushed myself..."

Rae stretched out his hand toward a cup on the porcelain counter. It fluttered across the surface into his waiting hand.

"Not good. He's picking up my fighting style and he's already understanding the basics of telekinesis," Bastila whispered to Juhani.

"Would you two stop whispering?" Canderous called from the couch. "It's really annoying. Makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up."

"Rae...I could end up doing more harm than good. There are terrible risks with the path I and Juhani walk."

"Then help me avoid some of them!"

"He has point, Bastila," Juhani added.

"You think I don't know that, Juhani?" Bastila hissed in frustration. Her anger flared and the cup Rae had put back on the counter spontaneously exploded, shards flying everywhere.

Rae swooned. "W-what was that?" he asked, clutching his forehead. "Your power just...spiked all of a sudden. Uncontrolled. I...can feel your anger."

Bastila froze as everyone, including Juhani, stared at her.

"Is that the secret?" Rae pressed, taking the padawan by the shoulders. "Is that the secret you're so desperate to hide? That emotion can fuel your abilities as much as a clear head can? That there is a...a _Dark Side _to the Force?"

"Forgive me, Officer Nolin," Bastila whispered. "I have failed you."

"What?" Nolin asked.

"Again with the whispering?" Canderous called out, exasperated.

Rae suddenly felt himself being lifted by something invisible and then he was flying through the room, crashing through the front door and sent into the dingy under works alley just beyond.

Rae scrambled up, drawing his pistol, only to have the pistol fly out of his hand and into Bastila's.

"Bastila, NO! BASTILA!" Juhani cried, heading out the apartment.

Bastila floated off the ground, eyes again glowing that terrible orange color. She spotted Juhani and pinned the Cathar woman to the ground effortlessly with telekinesis.

Onasi ran outside, blaster drawn, only for Canderous to stop him, wrenching the blaster out of his hand as the remaining soldiers all trained their rifles on Bastila, but Canderous waved them away also.

"Don't," he warned. "She'll kill you."

"Bastila, what are you doing?!" Carth called out.

_"He knows!" _she hissed, going into that echo voice as she levitated off the ground. _"He'll spread the knowledge of it before his Jedi are ready to face it! He has to die!" _Wind and the Force made her hair fly wildly, the ground underneath her pressing together and cracking from some invisible pressure.

"Hey furball," Rae called out to Juhani, both frozen, one out of fear, the other from Bastila's restraint. "Is this normal for your type of Jedi?"

"No," Juhani answered. "Bastila, why it so bad he know truth?"

_"It's my fault! He'll know what I know, feel what I feel! He has no frame of reference."_

"Bastila," Juhani pleaded. "It murder if you do this."

Bastila turned to Juhani, still glued to the dirty, muddy ground. _"What would you have me do? Train him? I'm only a padawan! I'll mess it up! He'll turn."_

"We make it work..." she gasped."Besides, everyone else here know secret now. You kill them too?"

_"I...I..." _Bastila stuttered.

Suddenly, she released her power over Juhani, dropping to the ground. The glow left her eyes.

"Forgive me, Nolin, for what I was about to do," Bastila panted, sweating from the unfathomable exertion, her reserves strained. "I won't kill you, Officer Nolin...but I cannot train you either. It would be irresponsible of me to do so. You'll just have to work it out on your own. I won't give you any advice from this point forward except this: Beware the Dark Side."

"I don't even know what it is, yet you ask me to be afraid," Nolin countered, calling his pistol out of her hand and back to him. "What is it about the Dark Side I'm supposed to beware of?"

Bastila regarded him sadly for a moment before her gaze hardened.

"Rae," she said in a low growl. "Don't push it."

Bastila walked back into the apartment, the others giving her a wide berth as she strode past them

Rae sat at the couch silently by himself, experimenting with moving his pistol around the caffa table via his new gifts. Bastila had been in deep meditation for over an hour, clearing her mind and regaining her strength. Captain Onasi was busy cleaning his blaster on the kitchen counter. Canderous had sent his remaining soldiers away, desiring glory by accompanying this group on the next phase of the mission. He was outside, enjoying a cigar.

Juhani sat down next to Rae. He didn't glance up.

"I sorry for what happened out there," she started.

"What gives Bastila the right to end my life based on fear?"

"Nothing, Rae. Nothing gives her that right," Juhani replied. "She just needed a reminder, is all. She acted out fear. And fear is of the Dark Side."

"What IS the Dark Side?" Rae demanded. "Why is she so dead set on keeping me shackled to HER ideal? Wearing her chains?"

Juhani suppressed her disquiet at his mention of 'chains'. "She only tries to stave off disaster. Protect people."

"That's exactly what I'm trying to do, but I can't do that if I don't have all the facts. Help me, Juhani, I'm begging you," he said, taking her hands into his own.

Juhani pulled her hands away. "It not so simple. I could end up hurting you."

"There is always risk in any venture," Rae protested. "But what good is your vow to protect others if you won't help them learn to protect themselves?"

"I...I can show you...'something'. A meditative trance. No harm in that," Juhani replied, dodging his questions about the Dark Side.

Nolin wasn't fooled and he did not relent. "We're past simple exchanges, Juhani. I need something solid. Concrete."

Juhani finally made up her mind and stared at his pistol. "Close your eyes."

"What?"

"Close them. You want me to teach you, Da? Then you will learn. Close your eyes."

Rae closed his eyes behind his thick mask.

"You know how I lift vehicle earlier? Size not matter. An object has no weight in mind except what you believe it has. I train you to ignore this limit," Juhani continued authoritatively. "I train you to lift couch now. Focus. Let go of everything..."

When Bastila stirred eventually, she was greeted with the unpleasant prospect of feeling Rae's presence in her mind. Except it was calmer. Controlled.

"Juhani's been showing him tricks," Bastila muttered. "Great, just what I need..."

She rose from her kneeling position and walked into the cramped living room. Rae was at the kitchen counter assembling his pistol-with telekinesis. The parts floated in the air, locking gently into one another. Juhani sat with Carth, watching some sort of sitcom on the holoprojector.

"Juhani," she called out sternly.

Juhani rose wordlessly and followed Bastila into her bedroom. The turbo door shut automatically behind her.

"You've taught him something," Bastila stated. It was not a question.

"A basic technique, nothing more."

"There is nothing 'basic' about the Force, Juhani!" Bastila hissed. "If he goes bad, it's on you. Just remember that. I tried to avoid this at every turn."

"You are responsible for him. He save your life, and in thanks you try to take his!" Juhani protested, again making Bastila experience a deep sense of shame in nearly giving into her panic after Rae had discerned the truth. "It is not I who should be showing him such things."

"We are both padawans. We have no business showing him 'anything'," Bastila replied, rigidly sticking to her earlier argument.

"Like it or not, your lives now tied together, and it even more irresponsible of you to let him flounder, when it is YOUR gift he learn from," Juhani argued. "Ignoring him is bigger mistake."

"You will never convince me to train him."

Juhani sighed. "I know," she answered sadly. "I had to try and make you see though. So _I _could sleep at night, knowing I do everything I could to make you honor bond. It saddens me to see you like this."

"Like what?" Bastila inquired, cocking an eyebrow.

"Full of fear," Juhani answered.

"I'm not afraid," Bastila protested.

"I'd say you will be...but you already are. You fear Nolin, Fear making misstep."

"Juhani..._we're stuck in a friggin' parallel universe. _One mistake and we could end up being stuck here forever, while 'our' Revan goes on to ravage 'our' galaxy. Think woman! You know how destructive the conflicts are over there with the Sith! Do you really want to risk importing that over here?" Bastila snapped coldly. "I don't. I won't have that on my head. I've already made a mess of things as they are just being here! Every second we spend here, we risk contaminating it even further! So forgive me if I don't want to waste my time playing 'Mysterious Jedi Mentor' to the locals only to have one of the bastards pull a red blade on me someday!" she finished, drawing breath in sharply as she tried to rein in her emotions.

"Bastila...is this how you feel about 'our' Jedi?" Juhani asked with a flash of clarity.

Bastila stared at Juhani.

"Interpret it however you choose. But mark my words, Juhani, I will 'not' be responsible for Nolin. Or for bringing the Dark Side here," Bastila finished sitting back on the bed. "Now, if there is nothing else, we have a friend of Revan's to visit..."


	4. The Fall

Bastila sat on the couch of the cramped apartments living room with Juhani, surveying the contents of the the cloth bag as she -re-emptied them on the table, having been forced to remove them earlier to teach Rae something.

"Well, what you think?" Juhani asked, gesturing to the spare parts she had salvaged from both the vehicle accident they had had earlier as well as the parts to the confiscated Arc-Sword they had stolen from this Universe's Bandon.

Bastila eyed the contents- three flat power coupling emission ports, some sort of low grade energy cells, power transmission coils, and the crystal portions of the com-links donated by two of Canderous' soldiers.

"I think," Bastila replied, leaning forward, "That we are in business."

The two were still wearing the disguises they had come to this universe with, Bastila a set of dark brown slacks and shoes, a white long sleeve shirt, Domino mask and brown leather trench coat, and Juhani with a totally red set of slacks, black-colored armored boots and gloves, also with a domino mask and beanie. she wore a necklace with a police badge from the Jedi of this dimension, ID numbers stamped clearly in front. The apartment was an unpleasant, off white color, with a single large holo-projector in the living room. Captain Onasi had tried to keep himself occupied after coming here to hide from the Jedi Defectors of this Universe's Revan. His garish orange turtleneck sweater nearly distracted from the brown trousers and boots, and his unshaven, needing-a-slight-trim look for his brown hair.

Bastila picked up a small hydro spanner out of a set of three, all with a welding laser modification and set to work, taking the jumbled, disorganized mess and beginning to craft something.

"You're making lightsabers, aren't you?" asked a rough voice that originated from the entrance to the apartment.

Bastila looked up, staring at Officer Rae Nolin (Jedi Exile of universe 11-82). His leather bomber jacket, tightly closed around him with oversized brass buttons and a front flap he left undone at a corner near the top, was smudged with dirt and the mud from the under works after Bastila had hurled him out of the apartment after discovering he had accidentally made a Force Bond with her, which had allowed him to discern a truth she had desperately tried to keep hidden from this universe's Jedi: That the Force had a Dark Side to it. His dark slacks, lined with many pockets and two spare holsters on the sides were also caked in the dirt. His boots were scuffed, marring the polish. He also wore a domino mask, but one made of a heavy, angular metal material that concealed his eyes behind dark slots. His skin was slightly darker than Carth's own tan, and he had short cut curly dark hair with long sideburns.

Bastila had been trying to keep the bond between them closed but it was becoming more and more difficult. In the hours that had passed since it occurred, he had slowly been gaining more and more knowledge from her. At an exponential rate. Juhani insisted he needed to be shown the way for his own protection but Bastila had refused, citing that they were only padawans.

"Yes, Rae, we're making lightsabers. I must ask that you try not to construct one with what you've learned from me. You could hurt herself," Bastila admonished gently.

"Only because you refuse to teach me," Rae growled in frustration.

Bastila ignored the barb and continued her work. Rae already knew a good deal. There was no point in refusing to work while he was around. But that did little to ease Bastila as she watched Rae prowl about. She sensed the darkness in him, faint but there. It had tasted her power and wanted more.

Bastila and Juhani used everything, joining together the coupling ports with the micro circuitry of the com-links and the power cells, the transmission coils were fused into the design, giving both definition to the ad-hoc weapons as an efficient energy distribution system and as the inner layer of the hilt as parts of it were wrapped around the design and joined at specific points in the circuitry, left unfinished on one side.

Bastila used the welding laser, cutting parts of the com-links' now dissected frame, and fitting it to the small, thumb sized storage unit of its former crystal equipment, piecing together the new chamber and setting it into the unfinished hilt, joining it to the circuits. She grabbed another hydro spanner, slicing the tube-shaped tool in half on both sides and extracting its contents. Everything would be needed. She took the spare tool's welding laser, disassembled it and began using the Force to alter the tool down at its molecular level, causing the broken down laser tool to start fusing with the energy-cells contact points, telekinetically adjusting it and fusing it also with the pen shaped tool's lens and magnetic alignment module. Captain Onasi went over and watched in fascination with Rae as he witnessed the components start to melt together, twisting and shifting at their points of contact, melting into the other mechanisms and the inner wall of the device. Bastila took a com-link crystal, a small faceted yellow gem cut in such a way that it would not have been out of place if it had been mounted onto a ring, and set it into the crystal focusing chamber which sat above the laser tool ignition node and under the focusing lens. She then took some of the circuitry and power cycling systems from the Arc-Sword, fitting it into her design, while passing the rest to Juhani as she worked on hers. She fused all of this together into her new hilt, joining the innards with the outer shell of the sliced apart hydro spanner, sealing it together with her welding laser, which she then used on her trench coat, slicing small strips of it off and fusing the strips together on the hilt, giving the finished weapon a brown grip. The 'ON' button from a com-link served as the activation stud for the weapon. Bastila then passed her tool to Juhani so she could finish her weapon, which followed similar methods. In a nod to Bastila, when Juhani finished she did something similar to her own jacket, slicing strips of the red leather away and fusing it to her hilt for the grip.

The pair stared at their weapon. Bastila's was the length of a single hilt, but possessed two silver, flat emitters with a few scratches. The brown leather grip felt comfortable in her hand.

"Stand back," Bastila ordered everybody as she stood up. Everyone went to one side of the room while Bastila went to the middle. She said a little prayer: This had been a rush job, using emergency crafting techniques. Hopefully it wouldn't blow her arm off.

She hit the small activation stud recessed into the hilt.

Two flat, light yellow blades with a diamond shaped tip sprang out of the weapon at both ends. The hum was slightly higher than a normal lightsaber.

Bastila gave and experimental twirl of the weapon before shutting it off. The crystal it used had never been meant for this sort of thing. It could easily fail, cracking in its chamber and causing either one or both of the blades to short out if put through too much stress. She would have to use it only when left with no other choice.

Bastila went to the end of the room where Captain Onasi and Rae were standing. "Now you, Juhani," she called out.

Juhani went to the center of the room and confidently turned the blade on, the hilt covered with a red leather grip and bearing a flat emitter like Bastila's.

A flat, light yellow blade snaked out, its tip slanting diagonally like a single edged sword, straight in shape.

"Flat blade. That take getting used to," Juhani remarked before shutting it off. "I no like color though. If only I had blue crystal..."

"Beggars can't be choosers, Juhani," Bastila replied in her cultured accent. "We take what we're given."

"You right. At least we have weapon," Juhani replied.

"No kidding," remarked Canderous Ordo as he stepped in through the entrance, having watched Juhani turn her blade on. A burly figure clad in a black, pinstripe business suit with a large wide brimmed black hat and shoes, a red armor vest thrown over his suit and carrying a medium sized repeater with a drum-shaped power cell and a foregrip attached. It appeared to only use iron sights. His face was concealed by an engraved mask with a t-shaped visor made of a dark, glossy material. "Those weapons put any Arc-Sword currently on the black market to shame. How'd you build those things, Jedi?"

"Trade secret," Bastila answered. Canderous had no idea that the Juhani and Bastila he was currently in an uneasy alliance with were not from this universe, having arrived less than a day ago from their own dimension to kill this dimension's Revan.

"Bah, Jedi and their secrets. Word of advice? Don't play everything so close to your chest. It'll cause people to mistrust you if you do it enough times," he remarked, his accent casual, yet strangely refined and eloquent, like most versions of this particular individual.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," Bastila replied in dry fashion, hooking the weapon to her belt. "Now let's go speak to Revan's girlfriend."

Canderous had arranged shuttle transport, careful to pay in actual credit chits instead of an electronic transfer, fearing the Jedi currently hunting them could trace them with such a mistake. Bastila had a chance to lose herself as she watched the outside race by the viewport of the small, flying wing shaped orbital shuttle, curiously bearing a decal similar to the Ebon Hawk Captain Onasi flew, save this one had a human woman, in a white dress waving her hat excitedly as she rode an exaggerated, archaic design of a ship that primarily used ancient rocket technology. the city's buildings of this version of Coruscant contained staues of animals and large carvings of faces built right into the design, giving the whole city a unique look.

The sector they were flying to seemed primarily to be a zone for transparent, mushroom shaped buildings containing parks and lakes within, and giant, cube shaped arcologies that dotted the cityscape atop a giant, tree like structure that grasped all of the buildings, stretching out over twenty kilometers in every direction. Bastila's mouth dropped in amazement at the unique superstructure as the shuttle maneuvered its way to a docking station in one of the transparent arcologies. Bastila and Juhani noticed that tree designs seemed to dominate the painted surfaces of the docking bay as the shuttle landed.

Everyone filed down the landing ramp, Bastila took in more of the sights. The docking bay was quite stylish. Red banners blew gently in the open air along the walls and the disembarking lines were surrounded by velvet rope. Band music played festively over the loudspeaker, mostly instrumental, with clarinets, trombones, and saxophones featuring heavily in what was played. Bastila turned and stared outside. The dark storm she had spotted since coming here approached the city ominously. the walls and surfaces were covered in painted tree designs, with images of foxes and deer entwined in the design also.

The group got in line in front of customs. The docking area was massive and rife with other travelers of every species, each filing into their own lines at their own security checkpoints.

When the group reached the front, they were obstructed by an old, dark skinned man behind a cherry wood desk, guarding the turbolift passage to the arcology proper. A number of ceiling turrets and floor turrets kept him company. More turrets than Bastila was sure she and Juhani could overcome.

Bastila and the Cathar woman stepped through a small door-sized frame of sensors. Alarms started blaring and the turrets went active, all fixing menacing green lasers on their torsos. The two froze.

The old man sat in the desk, dressed in a green pinstripe suit. He was wrinkled yet dignified in his ancientness, sporting a well maintained goatee of graying hair. He was bald, and he wore a white eyepatch over his left eye, bearing a decal of a sunflower wrapped around a blue caterpillar. He didn't look up as he continued bringing his security stamp down on papers he took from a large stack to his left, setting what he stamped to his right.

"Sensors picked up high end energy weapons of an unknown design on both of you. What is your business in the arcology sector?" the man asked in a weathered, slightly hoarse tone, still stamping papers and not looking up.

"You don't need to know our business," Bastila answered, waving her hand in a discreet motion.

The man glanced up, his good brown eye raking them over as he stared with an expression of surprise. "Oh? And why is that, young lady?" he asked, folding his arms.

Bastila blinked in surprise. She considered turning her full power on the man but thought the better of it.

"I'll handle this," Rae spoke, making his way past the two. "They're with me, Bindo."

Bindo stared before breaking out into a smile.

"Rae!" he greeted. "Fancy running into you! So, the precinct still have you on the Cicero beat?"

"Underworks beat, actually," Rae answered casually. "Listen Jolee, can you make an exception here? Agency business."

Jolee glanced at Canderous. "What sort of agency business requires a Mandalorian's help?"

"The same kind that could do without the prejudiced musings of a nosy old man," Canderous snapped.

Jolee eyed him. "Don't try and threaten me, Mando. I'm a former investigator. I could confiscate that blaster of yours in a heartbeat."

Canderous hefted his weapon, causing a few onlookers to back away. "Just try, Jedi."

"Canderous!" Bastila hissed. "Be silent."

"Whatever. Stupid old man..." Canderous grumbled.

Rae glanced back at Jolee. "Help me out here. For old time's sake. Sooner we're gone, sooner the Mando's out of your hair."

Jolee looked at the group before sighing.

"Okay, Rae, because it's you. One time only, though," Jolee muttered, switching off the turrets and opening the turbolift with the security keypad built into the table. "Try not to start any trouble."

"Thanks Jolee," Rae nodded, gesturing to the others to follow him. As they walked past, Juhani whispered in Bastila's ear.

"Hey, Bastila," she asked. "Wasn't there Jolee Bindo in Exar Kun War?"

"As a matter of fact, there was. Didn't he leave the order?" Bastila wondered.

Rae, misinterpreting her question, spoke up. "Oh, Jolee? Old man was the best detective in the Agency. Hell, even the government occasionally consulted him for the really weird cases. He retired from the Agency

"What happened? I mean, Mister Bindo doesn't seem like the kind of guy to be stuck behind a desk," Onasi asked.

"Same thing that happens to a lotta folks, Carth: A woman. In this case, his wife of 23 three years finally forced him to settle down, making money a safer sort of way. But nobody ever really leaves the biz," Rae answered.

"Bet you he wouldn't trade places with ours," Bastila said under her breath, remembering the circumstances 'her' Jolee had left the Order under.

"No kidding," Juhani replied with a snicker.

The transparent walls of the arcology gave a fantastic view of the outside, the bright orange sun now only a pinpoint of light as storm clouds began to fully obscure it. Light rain began to drizzle the outside, running in sheets down the walls. This level of the arcology was the consumer level, filled with the stores and restaurants, jammed as neatly together as possible and yet still managing an untidy sprawl throughout the whole of the level as civilians bustled about, the light jazz over the announcement systems playing with magnificent clarity. Bastila noticed that most of the men, alien or not, seemed to wear a pinstripe outfit, or if they were alien the equivalent, while the women wore a long dress that stopped at the ankles, or again the cultural equivalent.

"I always wanted to come to the Arcology Sector but I could never find the time," Carth remarked as he and the others gently brushed pass countless civilians. "I was thinking maybe me and my wife could live here." he was clearly enchanted with the place.

"Wouldn't be the worse place you could pick, pilot," Canderous remarked, staring at an ice cream shop. "Hmmm...ain't had the cookie dough in a while."

Carth stared at him. "I didn't know Mandalorians liked ice cream."

Canderous stared back. "My people have never been able to resist the decadent sin that is the banana split. It's a warriors dessert."

Carth raised a brow. "How is ice cream a warriors desert?"

"Because we use it to test ourselves whenever we get a tooth cavity," he answered. "The pain is unimaginable. If you can take that kind of pain, you can take anything."

"Uh...wow, dude. Just...wow. Leave it to your people to turn a treat into an instrument of torture," Carth replied darkly, wide-eyed.

Canderous stared.

"Onasi, anybody ever told you that you take things way too literal? I was making a joke," he replied bluntly.

Carth snapped out of his surprise. "Oh, you were?" he laughed, scratching his head nervously. "Uh...sorry."

Canderous continued to stare at him.

Carth fidgeted. He spotted a man selling hot caffa behind a kiosk belonging to a pair of Rodians not far off.

"I'll be over there," he said quickly, heading to the kiosk to end the awkward moment.

"That man has his head so far up his ass, it wouldn't surprise me if he could see his own heart beating," Ordo remarked as Carth left temporarily.

"That's disgusting!" Bastila grimaced, exposing her braces.

"But true," he rejoined as Carth came back with a steaming durafoam cup of caffa. "Okay. I'm ready. Where's Revan's girlfriend?"

"Apartment 87, level C," Bastila reminded him. "We need to take one of the turbo-trams."

As the group filed into the turbo trams, Transparisteel cubes with repulsor lift channels on the inner rail to propel them either up, down, or side to side in the network of tram tunnels, also made of transparisteel, the layout was made easy to understand by a color code for each sector the tram went to in the arcology. Ergonomics had been fully considered, including economics. Bastila's Coruscant didn't have anything like this massive network. And the place was bathed in the gaudy yet strangely appealing neon signs denoting certain areas and commerce centers. Dura-Marble had been laid into the floors, of a variety that featured a white hardstone with red veins, chemically manufactured for added strength and hardness while reducing weight. Water fountains marked the borders between sectors for foot traffic

The tram slid upward and then to the right in an opaque tram tunnel before opening up into a vast cube shaped chamber painted in what would have been considered oil-in-water colors, but far brighter. Green cherry blossoms framed the brick archway into the apartment courtyard, which featured what appeared to be a life sized statue composed of milky jade, depicting a humanoid shape in a meditative trance, sitting in the lotus position.

Bastila raised a brow as she, Juhani, and Rae all felt the tingle of Force energy from the statue.

"What is that statue doing here?" Bastila asked.

"Oh, that?" Carth spoke up. "That's called 'The Contemplator'. It's been here for about two weeks now. No one knows where it came from. People have been showing up more and more to see it. They are calling it the seventh wonder of Coruscant."

"That's not an ordinary statue," all three Force Users said at the same time. Bastila glanced uneasily at Rae for a second before approaching the object. She ran her hands across the smooth surface of its head, trying to discern its purpose.

"Force User of sufficient knowledge detected," the statue spoke in a hollow electronic tone, an inner white glow from its torso appearing with each spoken word.

The power from it suddenly became a torrent. Bastila was half tempted to start absorbing the power but resisted, pulling her hand away from the object.

"Juhani," Bastila whispered. "It's a holocron."

"The whole damn _thing?_" Juhani blurted in disbelief, going over to it.

"The whole damn thing," Bastila repeated. "Holocron, state maker and point of origin."

"This Holocron was commissioned by The Jedi High Council of Universe 89-67, an extremely technologically advanced dimension in comparison to other timelines within the multi-verse. The ship this device served on was on a dangerous mission. No further details are available without proper clearance."

"Holocron, you recognize me as Jedi?" Bastila asked.

"This device registers and interprets your brain patterns. This device senses great fear in you. Limited access is permitted."

"How did you end up here?" Carth asked, bewildered.

"Upon being salvaged, the Revan of universe 11-82 attempted to breach my security protocols. He was unsuccessful, and instead placed me in this courtyard."

"Any idea why?" Bastila asked.

"This device is not programmed to anticipate military strategy. It is a teaching tool and weapons fabrication unit, nothing more," the statue answered.

"Teaching tool? And what sort of weapons?" Canderous inquired.

"This device carries within it a trove of data regarding the nature of the Force, techniques that utilize it, as well as lightsaber combat styles, three of which are utilized only within this device's particular universe of origin," the statue answered. "However, only one with sufficient knowledge and brain patterns matching that of a Jedi Knight or multiversal equivalent are permitted access. The device will automatically lock down if the Dark Side is detected, or if Force User lacks sufficient wisdom."

"Oh, kek, I am so stupid," Bastila muttered, face palming herself.

Juhani turned to her friend. "Why? What wrong?" The fur on the Cathar woman bristled.

"Revan found this device, but he couldn't get in, right?" Bastila asked, growing more distressed by the minute, "And this holocron is from an extremely advanced version of the Order, right?"

"Your point?" Rae growled, folding his arms.

"Now I'm guessing," Bastila begin, pacing about as it hit her, "that this universe's Revan found the technology to jump between his continuity and ours from the ship he salvaged the holocron from. I'm also guessing there were no survivors, nobody he could get to open the holocron for him."

"Correct. There were no survivors," the Statue added.

"So that explains why he chose to send his version of Malak into our dimension: He was flying blind. He had no idea what he would encounter. He just hoped there was a version of the Jedi he could convince to help him, or, if convince was out of the question, kidnap."

"There is flaw in theory, Bastila," Juhani stated, stroking her furry rounded chin. "The Jedi of this universe have no proper mental defense. Jedi Council would have to have known Alek was lying."

"Would they know?" Bastila countered, pacing back and forth faster. "Or would they be totally blown away by the fact that somebody was from a parallel dimension and needed their help? How could anyone, even a Jedi Master be expected to remain impartial to such an unheard of phenomenon? We're not just off the beaten path, Juhani," Bastila replied, taking the Cathar by the shoulders, "We're neck deep in desert sand."

"Wait a minute. You two aren't from our dimension?!" Carth asked, mouth going slightly open in surprise.

"Dimension hoppers? Y'know, this reminds me of a really awesome martial arts film I saw once," Canderous chuckled.

Captain Onasi turned to Rae. "You knew about this?"

"Sorry Carth. Need to know basis," Rae answered.

"So, Jedi, do the Mandalorians exist in your universe as they do in mine?" Canderous asked.

"Yes. Unfortunately. They wear much more armor than yours do, however," Bastila spoke with authority.

"More armor, huh? Hmmm...we have been meaning to bulk up personal defense lately..." Canderous trailed off, intrigued.

"He must have figured out once he got us over here that we would never willingly help him open the holocron. So he what does he do? He lets us escape, knowing our powers are more advanced than his. Knows we'll go after him, follow every lead to him so that we could attack at our leisure, because he holds the secret to going home, the thing we want most. And he knew we'd get the information out of Kreia, knew we would go here, find this holocron, and do what he could not. And we did just what he knew we would," Bastila finished, slumping against a support pillar, also covered in the oil-in-water colors. "Bloody hell, his goons are probably on their way here as we speak."

"There's still hole in theory," Juhani replied flatly. "It only works if everything goes to plan. Dozen things could have happen between Dantooine and Coruscant. How could he know we come here to Coruscant in particular?"

"That's the easy part: Rae was with us," Bastila replied in just as flat a tone.

"He must have known I'd hit Coruscant. Where else could we have gone? It's the center of government for the entire galaxy."

"Rae," Bastila said with a dark smile as she unhooked her lightsaber from her belt. "You are such a liar. This bond we have works both ways. Exactly as you intended."

Juhani stepped between the two. "I thought we had decided you no kill him."

"That was before I realized my mistake. Think Juhani, When we first met Rae, he asked us if we were really from a parallel dimension. Now remember when he also said that he hadn't been able to dig up anything solid on Revan? So how could he know enough about the situation to ask us that question?"

Juhani slowly craned her head to Rae. "Is this true?"

Rae scoffed. "Crazy talk."

"Is it?" Bastila asked with a sneer. "Remember Jack Rand? He called Rae a fanatic. Why would you call a police officer, even a very demanding and scrupulous one, a fanatic? And why was Kreia on a first name basis with Rae at all? And how was it Bandon found us? It was Rae who directed us, acted as an advisor, told us about the lead he had. He told Bandon where we'd be, sent him a message through the Force. He was bonded with him to. And did you check my injuries personally, or did Rae simply tell you I was on the verge of death?" Bastila wondered.

"I never lied to you about your injuries, Bastila," Rae snapped, clearly insulted. "You would have died, had I not aided you."

"Perhaps you're telling the truth, but even if you are, you still had an excuse to weave as tight and as close a bond as you could, so that you could learn everything you wanted to know simply by glancing into my mind," Bastila rejoined coldly. "It's something you were doing as far back as Dantooine."

"What does she mean, Rae?!" Juhani demanded, pulling out her flat bladed lightsaber, switching it on in half a second and angling the blade towards him. Canderous leveled his repeater at Rae also.

"Our friend is not what he appears. He's a cipher, forming bonds, siphoning the will of others. When he bonds with them he gains information, and he can share information also. In a few hours he'll know everything I know. And then he'll be able to share what I know with all his compatriots. Instantaneously," Bastila finished, broken at the revelation that she had failed, despite all her efforts. "And since he's bonded with me, he'll use that bond to help him open the holocron whenever he wants, along with anybody he gives the knowledge to."

Bastila stared sadly at Rae. "You have no idea the kind of pain you'll bring."

They heard clapping at the top of the staircase leading to the second floor.

Revan stood close to the floors railing, leaning over and looking down. He wore a dark brown, formal business suit with white pinstripes. His face was concealed by a mask the color of bronze, with a single, thin black visor to see out of. Bastila saw both her and Juhani's original lightsabers clipped to his belt, Bastila's a simple hilt of brown metal with a silvery, slender, bowl shaped emitter. Juhani's was made of reinforced stone and quartz banded together in a candy cane pattern, the face of a gargoyle at the top of the emitter shroud. It was point five times longer than Bastila's. Next to him was a Twi-Lek woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a long white dress that stopped at her ankles. Her skin was light violet, with a pale pallor near the face, and she had violet eyes. She was a stunning beauty, and her bare arms were wrapped around Revan's.

"Bravo, dear Bastila," Revan spoke in a husky, authoritative tone. "A bit late in the deduction, but my admiration to you figuring it out."

Canderous leveled his weapon at him.

Revan stretched out his hand and the weapon was yanked from the Mandalorian's fingers and was sent skittering to the floor some distance away.

"That IS a useful power," Revan noted. "The Cartels days are numbered, Ordo. Go and tell your boss I said that."

"Humph. We'll see," Canderous scoffed.

"You don't know what you're doing, Revan. This technology, this power, was never meant for you," Bastila argued, desperate to make him understand.

"Sorry, Bastila, sometimes you have to be baptized by fire," Revan replied. "But nonetheless, you have done what I wanted you to do. And I said that if you did what I wanted I would let you go. I'm a man of my word."

Revan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small com-link.

"It's over, Alek. They'll be leaving shortly," he spoke into it before putting it away.

He turned to look down on them again. "Alek and a team are standing by a copy of the device set up in my room. The coordinates are set for your universe. You can go home."

"It no work like that, Revan. We stay until job finished," Juhani asserted.

Revan put at hand to his chest as though stricken. "What, kill me? You were brought here under the guise of terminating me simply because I share a name with 'your' enemy and stopping my attempt to spread the mysteries of the Force to my Jedi. You have clearly failed in both regards. Go home. No one will blame you. The situation was an unknown anyway."

"The Dark Side will spin the galaxy off to war!" Bastila nearly shouted. "Ask Rae. If you have a bond with him like I do, you'll know all about the wars, the bloody feuds, the cycle of destruction."

"I've been considering that, Bastila," Rae spoke up suddenly, surprising Juhani by calling her brand new lightsaber to his hand and angling it at her. "From what my bonding process allows me to know so far, all I can conclude is that the polarization between light and dark is entirely the fault of your Jedi, who would stubbornly promote one way of thinking, even if it would destroy them. Me and Revan will see to it 'our' order does not suffer from such bias," Rae replied. "Drop your weapon."

"Don't listen to him," Bastila hissed at Revan feverishly. "His philosophy is corrupting. The Dark Side-"

"-Is simply another side of the Force like any other, and its time our agency stopped being so short sighted," Rae countered.

"No! The Dark Side is Fear! Anger! Hatred! All your worst emotions influencing how you act, all of the time! Only with proper training will you be able to avoid its terrible effects!" Bastila exclaimed, approaching Revan. "It has fueled countless atrocities. The more you call on it, the more addicted you become."

"Is it stronger?" Revan asked.

Bastila shook her head. "No. Merely quicker to learn."

"Then perhaps we'll need it. We want the Jedi to be strong, do we not. And getting strong, quickly, could count for something in the end," Rae argued.

Revan stared at Rae. "I...I don't know, Rae. She seems rather frightened by it. I'm starting to think I should hear her out."

"Don't bother! She's too set in her ways! Too biased. She could simply be saying that to mislead you. Maybe the Dark Side is stronger and her Jedi are simply too afraid to admit it or too cowardly to try and master it. Either way, she's served her purpose! We don't need her imput," Rae snarled.

Revan and the woman took a step back. "You...seem different Rae. You alright?"

Bastila and the others all glanced at Rae, who shook his head as though he was dizzy. He regained his composure after a second. "I'm fine," he answered. "Just send them back."

"He feels cold to you, doesn't he, Revan?" Bastila pressed, seeing a way to reach him. "You're getting goose bumps on your skin just looking at him, aren't you?"

"I...thought it was simply chilly," Revan answered uneasily.

"It isn't. Search your feelings. Feel through the bond with him. Close your eyes-"

"Enough!" Rae ordered, pulling out a pistol and firing it into the air. "Send them home, Revan."

"Something...cold," Revan said, going stock still as he stretched out his senses. He reeled back when he felt the darkness in Nolin's body. "What...what the hell is that?" he gasped, taking a step away from the railing.

"That's the Dark Side, and Rae is being corrupted by it as we speak," Bastila answered. "Revan...I know like it seems you're doing the right thing...but you and Rae and Alek are in way over your head. Look what it's doing to him, Revan. That'll be you very easily if you continue."

"She lies!" Rae hissed. "She's afraid. ALL of her Jedi are afraid. And they're letting THEIR Mandalorians walk all over them, butchering everyone! All because they're too scared to defend what's theirs, TAKE what's theirs!"

Rae edged Juhani's weapon closer to her neck. "I'm not going to watch as my Jedi, my galaxy is destroyed. Go home. NOW!"

"Stand down, Rae," Revan suddenly ordered.

Carth leveled his antique, revolver-shaped blaster at Rae. "Something's happened to you, Rae. You've changed. And not for the better."

Nolin stared at them all before grabbing Juhani and holding the lightsaber half a centimeter from her throat.

"Nolin...do not do this..." Juhani whispered.

Several brown and white garbed Jedi agents, all wearing business suits and domino masks, filed out of several apartments above, aiming at him.

"You're siding with them?! They came here to kill you!" Nolin raged, slipping further.

"Nolin, with how you're acting, I'm starting to think she's right. There's way more to this than I thought. I'm suspending my operation until I can figure out how to deal with this 'Dark Side', whatever it actually is."

"Suspend? You can't suspend! We're too committed. The Investigators have to be overthrown so my Agency can be saved."

"_Your agency?" _Revan asked crossly, stunned he would use such a possessive term. "This power you've gotten from the woman-it's gone to your head. Stand down or be exiled from the movement, I will not ask again."

Bastila sensed it before Revan did. Rae had made up his mind.

Bastila telekinetically wrenched Juhani free, prying his arms away from her and pulling her forward as Rae fell to the Dark Side, screaming as he levitated off the ground, slamming bubbles of Force energy in to the balconies and floors above, flinging his lightsaber and killing three agents who fired at him instantly. Revan drew a pistol, but Rae screamed again, and his power yanked the weapon out of Revan's hands and crushed it. He slammed Revan and his girlfriend into the turbo-door of the apartment behind them.

Carth fired, aiming right for Rae's head, no longer knowing this enraged beast that had been a war buddy. Rae lifted Carth up, crushed his ribs, and flung him into a pillar, where he made a sickening thud as he impacted.

Canderous dove for his discarded repeater. He wheeled around on the ground. Firing.

His torso was peppered by rapid fighter repeater shots, but Nolin didn't go down. He screamed again, a sound which chilled everyone present to the bone as he lifted up a Jedi agent he'd blasted with rubble via the Force.

"No, Rae! DON'T DO IT!" Bastila shouted as the maelstrom that was Rae's power started tearing down large chunks of the apartment complex.

Rae focused his anger on his Jedi captive. The Jedi screamed, torso combusting, fire spreading out from the inside as his body was reduced to ash, life energies draining into Rae and closing the wounds Canderous had inflicted.

"I will not allow my Agency to be destroyed!" he shouted. "My power is manifested. I shall spread it to all Jedi. We shall bring order to the galaxy."

Rae turned, still levitating, unleashed a pulse of invisible energy that destroyed the wall in front of him, exposing the outside of the city, the wind from the city flowing into the complex.

"Since you've lost your nerve, Revan, I will be taking command of our organization," Rae growled, turning to Bastila, who lay in a fetal position on the floor, desperately trying to keep Nolin's bond from corrupting her mindset. "Since you are the reason I have at last come into my own, I will offer you this one opportunity to flee. You cannot stop me Bastila. I've grown beyond your fearful, self defeating philosophy. Flee while you can...or I shall change my mind about showing mercy."

Rae floated out through the hole, lowering himself into the city beyond.

Bastila finally found the strength to stand. "Oh, that is just bloody great," she scowled, gazing at the hole he'd blasted.

Revan jumped down, staring also. "What have I done?" he spoke in a tired stunned voice.

"You caused your ally to fall to the Dark Side," Bastila answered, tone unsympathetic. "We must kill him, quickly. He's this universe's first true Dark Jedi. You are not prepared for this. He'll turn anyone he can, and the risk is doubled if they're bonded to him." She could feel Rae's anger in the back of her mind, coiling around her heart like a snake.

"But I don't understand! Why did he fall?" Revan asked.

"Rae always had natural aggression in him. And wasn't he your strongest supporter. Fanaticism to one's cause can lead to a fall, and he may have had a lot of issues with his wife."

"Right..." Revan trailed. "The divorce with Arren...I'd almost forgotten. He wasn't okay afterward. Got cited and suspended for excessive force," Revan finished, staring again at the hole. "Pun not intended."

"Well, whatever it was that caused him to fall, he's going to take it out on all those Jedi who will say no to him. It'll be a slaughter," Bastila replied, helping her friend up. Canderous stood and went to check on Carth, placing two fingers on the neck to get a pulse. He got it. Carth was battered, but would survive if he got medical help.

"Gotta hand it to you, pilot; You're tougher than you look," Ordo remarked.

Carth let out a painful wheeze. "Just shut up and get a doctor," he got out.

"Say please," Canderous teased.

"Screw you."

Alek finally took the opportunity to venture out of Revan's apartment. Other civilians who had been hiding in their apartments finally dared to come out also. Alek was dressed in a white turtle neck sweater and white slacks with black shoes. His bald head glistened with sweat, as he pointed a particularly long barreled blaster out. "Is it over?" he asked, spotting Revan.

"Not by a long shot," Revan answered, before turning back to Bastila. "Let me help. Maybe it's not too late to reach him. If I can just talk to him-"

"You've done enough," Bastila snapped, her own anger once more getting the better of her. "None of this would have happened if you had left well enough alone. Every second we waste here he grows more powerful, and I grow closer to giving into my anger. Where is he going?"

"He's going to the old Precinct on Ossus. It was an abandoned facility I refurbished. It's also where the ship the holocron came from crash-landed," Revan answered. "I'd been studying it for three weeks before you'd arrived. It had been on the surface of the planet for close to five years before anyone found it."

"What he want from place?" Juhani asked.

"Besides being full of recruits drawn to our cause? The technology of the ship is very advanced. Who knows? Rae wanted to push forward more and more lately in trying to unlock its secrets. I advised caution-"

"He had already developed thirst for power by that point," Juhani interrupted. "We must go to this Ossus."

"No," Bastila said with naked command. "You and Alek will go to whatever passes for Jedi Headquarters here and you will prep them for Nolin's arrival. Make them understand however you can, because when Nolin shows...it's gonna be bad. I and Revan will journey to Ossus and try to stop Nolin there. Revan, you will arrange for this giant holocron to be transported with them."

"This device possesses flash-training capabilities, and it will be willing to facilitate to others as long as a proper Jedi is giving authorization," the statue spoke. "This device is also hardwired to the main computer of its service ship, and can provide long range explication between star sectors."

"So be it. We're off to Ossus," Revan sighed. He looked up at Alek. "Heal the man, and arrange for a tow vehicle."

Alek nodded, pulling out a comlink "All defector units, this is Alek. I'm gonna need a shuttle for transport outside the apartment complex at Qel-Droma Arcology."

"Wait, outside?" inquired a voice on the other end.

"Yes, Officer. Outside the Arcology. Park by the big giant hole," Alek replied, whistling a little as he stared out into the cityscape the hole exposed as he set his power on Carth. "Hope this place has insurance."

Revan turned to his girlfriend, Yuthura, who leaned against a wall on the second floor, arms folded and clearly in shock. "Yuthura, honey? Go home and get some rest. I'll call you later."

"Did...did you see what he did?" she whispered, sliky voice hoarse. "How are you going to stop him?"

"I'm not sure, honey. It really is a sort of 'play by ear' situation as of this moment," Revan answered matter-of-factly. "I'll make it up to you. I promise."

Yuthura stared at him with beady eyes. "I can't do this anymore, Revan. It's over. I'm not tying myself to a weapon."

Revan stared, in disbelief, as Yuthura marched down the stairs, past him and the others, and to the turbo-lift.

Before he could rush to her, Bastila stopped him, holding him by the shoulder as the turbolift door started to close.

"Let go of me!" he hissed, pulling out of the padawan's grasp as he rushed to Yuthura, hand just barely managing to stall the engraved turbolift door before it could close completely.

"Yuthura, what did I do wrong?" he sputtered. "Tell me what I did. We can fix it. I swear we can fix it."

"I'm not going to watch your power consume you Revan. This is all beyond me," Yuthura answered, tone hard. "I'm not going to watch any child I might have had with you suffer the same fate that man has. No sir," she continued, arms folding again. "Savior. Conqeror. Hero. Villain...it doesn't matter. You won't be the person I met. I'm sorry, but you're alone."

Yuthura reached out, expression softening as she touched his mask with the back of her hand. "Goodbye, Revan. I'll send you a postcard or something, if you live."

All Revan could do was stare and remove his hand from the turbo-door's path, letting it finally close.

"It was for the best, Revan," Bastila said gently. "Love is just as dangerous as the unthinking anger Rae has harnessed. It can lead to passion, which can just as easily lead to the Dark Side."

"Easy for you to say!" Revan exclaimed with a tortured whisper. "I met her in college. We'd been steady for two years!"

"She would have taken you to the Dark Side. Just like she's leading you to it now!" Bastila snapped, concealing her worry as she felt his quaking anger. "Control your emotions! Now!"

Revan clenched his fists, taking a few deep breaths as his anger subsided, replaced by sorrow and heartbreak.

"I said control your emotions," Bastila urged again.

"But...I got my anger under control!"

"But not your despair," she countered. "Control it, Revan. Let go of them."

"But...but I love her," he spoke in a small wounded voice that cut through Bastila's training for just a second.

_He's in pain, _she allowed herself to realize. _Terrible pain._

Her expression hardened. He had brought it on himself.

"Stop it then," she said harshly. "You got what you wanted. Your Jedi will know the secrets of the Force. If you were not prepared to accept the limitations that come with it, you should not have coveted it in the first place. As long as you still hold onto your love for her, and the new despair and heartbreak that now come with it, you risk corrupting yourself. Let go of it, for your own good."

Revan reeled back at her words. He studied her, suddenly starting to genuinely wonder what he had brought down on his head before he nodded, partitioning his emotions away in a thorned cage in his heart. A strange calm suddenly flooded him. His task was now simple again. His life was now simple again.

"You're right," he spoke tonelessly. "Let us devote ourselves to the task at hand."

Bastila just stared at him before snorting in contempt.

"Hope it was worth it Revan," she muttered, summoning Juhani's stone lightsaber from his belt and handing it to her cohort. "I really do."

Juhani let out a throaty growl of pleasure as she held her original weapon again. "Aw baby, you miss me?" she asked, peering into the hilt's gargoyle face.

"Hey!" Carth called out as Alek finished healing the last of his ribs, standing up. "My ship! I can get us to Ossus easy. I can fly us to where we parked it!"

"An excellent idea," Bastila said approvingly.

"Can he corrupt everyone linked to him?" Canderous asked.

"No. The person has to willingly embrace the Dark Side. But he will try and influence them to his way of thinking with the bond, that much is certain," Bastila answered. "We don't have much time."

Canderous approached Revan. "I will accompany the Cathar and your lackey to the Coruscant Precinct and bolster its defenses with my own warriors however I can."

Revan stared. "You? Help us? Why?"

Canderous waved his hand dismissively. "It is not altruism that forces my hand, merely the situation. If Nolin is allowed to control the Agency, than not only will we be dealing with Jedi Sorcerers, we'll be dealing with murderous, angry Jedi Sorcerers that can dissolve people with their mind. My people will have no chance against that. But make no mistake Revan, once the crisis passes...it's on."

"I would have it no other way," Revan replied cooly.

Canderous chuckled. "I like you, freak. You've got guts. You'd make a good Mandalorian with that attitude."

Revan chose to ignore the comment, turning and walking closer to the hole, staring out. The storm had finally arrived, and thunder and lightning flashed in the skies, the bolts of lightning cracking through the air like war drums.

As Bastila, Revan, and the now healed Carth filed into a bronze colored Agency Airspeeder via the hole Nolin had made, she watched as various civilians started coming out of their apartments, surveying the damage done to their home. Revan's agents were providing medical aid to anyone who'd been injured.

"So Bastila," Revan asked as he piloted the Airspeeder away from the Arcology. "Do you still intend to kill me once all this is over?"

Bastila, sitting next to him in the front, with Carth relaxing in the back after his traumatic ordeal, decided to answer. "I'm debating the possibility," she replied, uneasy.

"Was it...was it really so bad, what I was doing?" he asked. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen...I just wanted to protect my galaxy. I was trained to be civic minded. Politically savvy."

"The Force is not politics," Bastila snapped, her tolerance of this man already at a low ebb. "Power...Love...Influence. A Jedi does not desire such things."

"Then tell me, Bastila, what does a Jedi desire?" Revan asked, gripping the piloting stick tightly in frustration.

"A Jedi desires to serve the Force, to spread peace. To consider the consequences of every action he or she takes, and whether they affect others. You're going to want to get rid of your fine clothes, give up your possessions."

"Wait, " Carth spoke, sitting up. "Your Jedi swear off owning stuff, in your universe?"

"We take a vow of poverty, yes. And your Jedi will have to take that vow too, or they risk corrupting themselves," Bastila answered, turning back to Revan. "Hope you're ready to spend the rest of your days owning nothing but a lightsaber."

"Why are the rules so strict?" Revan asked, now unnerved at what he was hearing.

"Possessions would limit you. The whole point is to recognize that it is simply crude matter, and therefore tying yourself to it is pointless. Letting go of attachments will allow you to achieve clarity. Oneness with the Force."

"I just let go of my girlfriend. What did you have to sacrifice?" Revan asked bitterly.

Bastila stared hard, the thunder and rain flashing outside the enclosed vehicle cabin and casting her face in shades of black and white.

"My Father," she answered. "I had to swear off ever seeing my father ever again."

"How could you give up seeing a parent?" Revan and Carth both asked, incredulous.

"Easy. I was a good Padawan," she answered, reclining in her seat, forcing her terrible anger at the memories back down. "That's what you signed every Jedi in your dimension up for Revan. Is it starting to hit you now, the kind of commitment you've forced on them?"

"I could never force someone to give up their loved ones," Revan answered defiantly.

Bastila threw a cynical glare his direction. "Have fun with all the Dark Jedi, then."

"I...I mean, there's got to be another way...right? It can't be so cut and dried..." Revan said to himself.

"It is," she spat. "Deal with it."

Revan focused on piloting for the rest of the trip to the address of the landing pad, Carth had parked his ship on.


	5. Just Short Of Being In Time

Ossus, Universe 11-82.

Ossus, in Bastila's universe, had been destroyed when the Dark Lord Exar Kun had used a technique in the Force that had altered the core of the star Ossus had orbited, causing it to go nova. This Ossus was decidedly more intact, and from the green she could see out of the Ebon Hawk's viewport, lush.

The black, delta wing-shaped craft descended from the blackness of space into the golden skies of the planet, Carth flying expertly through turbulence in the atmosphere. Revan had been silent for most of the twelve hour trip, deep in contemplation over his actions. Bastila herself had been deep in thought, wondering how big a factor she had played in Nolin's fall by refusing to guide him, or whether it had been his own unknown emotional baggage that had doomed him.

"I've found that landing pad you mentioned. Setting her down..." Carth announced over the cockpit's intercom.

The ship rumbled as it touched the square landing pad. Bastila was the first to the landing ramp, walking out to get a look.

The Planet was dotted with flowers large enough to fit a person's foot in them. All bore curious swirling colors and they crawled over the fences of the compound, from the dark green forest that surrounded it, and creapt into its wide, square courtyards, most of which had been set up as a shooting range. The brown and white colors of the building were smothered with algae and vines.

The Precinct Building loomed over the rest of the compound that surrounded it, over most of the trees in the forest also. A silver shield, grayed with age, bore the sword and wings symbol of the Jedi on the front entrance. The building was composed of a square structure with a single obelisk jutting up from the center of the base structure. Windows lined the lower half, while the upper half was dominated by yet another of this universe's curious decals, this one bearing a gigantic circular portrait of a woman with curly, black locks that went down to the small of her back. She was light skinned, and wore a brown and white nurse outfit that stopped at her thighs. Her legs were covered by brown and white stockings in a candy cane pattern. Angel wings jutted out of her back as she held a long sword high over her head with her right hand, a badge held out in her left, giving a knowing wink to whoever gazed at her. If Bastila peered closely, she could make out a balance scale tattooed on the woman's neck, the green eyes of the figure lined by a domino mask.

"Jedi Betty. Something of a mascot for the Agency," Revan explained. "Strange...Nobody seems to have come out to meet us."

"It's not strange," Bastila grimaced. "It just means Nolin got here before we did."

"Look, even with him being as powerful as he is, he's still just one man. If he tried anything, someone would have managed to drop him eventually. They're probably preoccupied by something else," Revan tried to explain away, not really believing his own theory deep down, and feeling that coldness he'd felt in Rae's presence.

"Most of your people are probably dead. That or they ended up joining him," Bastila replied, not looking at Revan as she marched forward, feeling the cold get stronger as she approached the entrance.

The Entrance, many times her own size, parted neatly in half and Bastila stepped in.

She covered her mouth in shock and disgust. Revan dropped to his knees and Carth went a little pale.

Everywhere they could see in the large reception chamber, with a series of desks and computers set up in a circle at the exact center of the creamy, strawberry colored room, was a dead agent. Some had been flung into wall with such exertion that they had burst open, sliding down the wall like spread jelly, others had been impaled by pipes, or had their skeletons crushed. Tell-tale piles of ash let Bastila know that Rae had been refining his Draining Technique.

"I...I...I don't understand!" Revan shouted. "We know...KNEW these people. They were his friends! How could he do this to them?!"

Bastila shot Revan a look, hard and uncompromising. "That's the nature of the Dark Side, Revan. To be twisted into a mockery of the person you were, hurting even those closest to you. At this point I don't think he can be redeemed."

"I don't _want _to redeem him," Revan seethed, nearly throwing up as he spotted the head of a colleague jammed atop a lamp fixture. "I want to _destroy _him. To give him the pain he so thoughtlessly spread to others."

"Revan!" Bastila snapped, keen for any little screw-up he could make. "A Jedi does not take revenge. Vengeance is of the Dark Side. Let go of your hate this instant!"

"Why should I?!" he snapped back. "These were my friends! I asked them to trust me! To join me. He turned me into a liar," he snarled.

"No he didn't. You did. Did I not warn you of consequences?" Bastila countered, cutting into his pride with his own source of guilt. "You told him to bond with me, you told him to learn my secrets. You have just as much blood on your hands as Rae does. Think on that before you try and absolve yourself of all responsibility in this. Control your emotions!"

Revan grumbled but did as she asked, calming himself. He stood up.

"I'm better. Let's go find survivors...if he left us any," Revan spoke calmly.

Bastila nodded approvingly. Carth put his blaster back in his holster but kept his eye on Revan, starting to realize that he didn't trust Jedi.

As they walked. Revan unclipped Bastila's original lightsaber and handed it back to her.

She shook her head. "Keep it. Try not to lose it though. That weapon is your life now."

Revan shrugged and simply kept it in his hand as they continued to the back of the chamber.

"This leads to the research wing," Revan stated, stepping through a turbo door and into a lab that had previously been bustling, but was now as silent and dead as the reception chamber had been. It was filled with unfamiliar instruments and vials of chemicals, and holo-computers sat at research tables. Dead agents littered the place, some lay still, inert at their own desks, bloodied and broken. Others were hanging from a noose thrown around a built in light fixture. The walls were smeared with bloody handprints.

"As I live and breathe," Carth whispered, disgusted by the horror. "Did he spare nobody in this thirst for power he's developed?"

"Dark Siders do not know mercy, Captain," Bastila answered, stomach queasy at the sight. She felt the suffering of the Jedi here, cruelly cut down one by one after refusing to join Nolin.

Revan took a few tentative steps towards one body, that of a blond haired young man in the brown and white pinstripe suit of an Officer.

"Mical," he said, running fingers through the man's bloody hair, half his face turned into a black scorch mark from what seemed to be some sort of electrical burn.

"He was one of my earliest supporters. I was guest at his wedding," Revan said sadly. "Do I really have to let go of everything and everyone I love to follow the Force, even the memory of a now dead friend?"

"Jedi are allowed no such attachments. I'm not saying you should completely forget him, but do not allow his memory to affect your duty," she responded, examining the research tables for any clues as to what Nolin was after

Carth folded his arms, his garishly orange turtleneck sweater hurting Bastila's eyes. "So let me get this straight. If Juhani were to drop dead a few hours from now, you wouldn't bat an eyelash?"

"I'd be dismayed, but I would have to let it go. Juhani's troubles would be over at that point."

"But what if it was 'you' who dropped dead? Wouldn't you want to be remembered? Mourned over?" Carth pressed, seeking to find some humanity in her.

Bastila's response told him much. "I have no time for such vanity. Less so after expiring. So no. I'm just a speck of sand in the universe. I find meaning by being part of the beach."

Carth gazed at her in sympathy. "You live a sad, hard life, Jedi."

Her reply was with a deadpan expression. "I know."

"Oh, kek," Revan muttered, going over to one research terminal and overriding the security protocols with his password. "Tell me he hasn't..."

"What? What is it?" Bastila demanded.

"He'd been pressing me to give him access to some of the other things I found on the ship and had quarantined," Revan answered, glancing at the data as it flitted past his eyes on the holographic screen. "One thing in particular was an old tome. Hooked him from the very beginning. Said it 'called' to him. I thought he was simply curious but now I wonder...Bastila, can objects hold the Force as well?" he wondered.

"The Force can inhabit any number of objects," she answered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Trust me, in this business, an old, dusty tome can be a harbinger of ruin."

"Then we should investigate the ship immediately. No telling what it can do," Revan replied.

The three had taken an old land speeder they had found in the facility garage, abandoning the search for survivors. Revan had piloted the orange, beat up craft, the canopy of the vehicle providing cover from the poisonous insects and plants and the strange flowers outside. After a few thousand meters of green darkness, they came to a clearing. A giant crater taking up the landscape at that point.

The craft was massive, about the size of those disk shaped Republic dreadnoughts in Bastila's universe. It was half buried in the dirt, it's back end clipping one part of the crater's rim. It was a muted, dark color, and bore the clear profile of a large bird with sweapt wings. Feathers had even been designed into the hull's appearance. She could see part of the bird like ship's head, It's beak crystalline in nature, exposing part of a darkened area that belonged to the bridge. On the wing that stood in the air partly, clearly exposing a blue version of the Order's sword and wings symbol, albeit with a curious circuit pattern designed into the wings.

"I found out from the ships manifest that it was designated the _RSC Dark Peregrine,_" Revan explained, getting out of the speeder and leading them to a hastily constructed, skeletal turbolift platform leading down into the crater. Both Bastila and Revan felt Rae's presence grow stronger, but he went into the lift, continuing to talk as though nothing was wrong, even though the coldness of Rae's presence chilled him. "From what my engineers could piece together, the ship suffered some sort of catastrophic containment breach that ended up bringing the ship down into this universe. Everyone aboard was killed, including all the prisoners."

"Prisoners?" Carth asked.

"Yes. My engineers found a bunch of cryogenic modules filled with dead bodies. The mathematical code scrawled on each module described them as incredibly dangerous, and that they were not to be released under any circumstances," Revan answered as the lift carried them down. "All the bodies have stayed on site, in case there was some sort of contagion we ended up missing. Same goes for all the stuff we found."

"What sort of things have you recovered?" Bastila inquired.

Revan held up her lightsaber. "The crew all had weapons like these. Few of them worked, and they were not made the way yours and Juhani's were. We also found some encrypted holodisks, some weird sets of robes, armor, statues. Paintings-there's this really cool one I'll show you if we get the chance, and some weird little masks and blocks of crystal. There's so much in the cargo-hold that our engineers don't have any idea how to use. We're too scared to take apart anything intact to see how it works."

"Didn't that freaky holocron thingamajig say it was on a dangerous mission? Maybe we'll know more once we're inside and a proper Jedi is there," Carth suggested.

When they reached the bottom, Bastila went on alert. A number of agents, eight in all, were waiting for them at the bottom, and Bastila saw all of them bearing the same type of flat-bladed lightsaber design as Juhani.

Revan slowly took a step forward. "It's me, men. Its Revan. Where is Officer Nolin?"

"Master Nolin has shown us the true secrets of the Force, Revan. He has shown us the Dark Side," one of the agents, a red head in a skintight cat suit of green leather and a domino mask answered. Her eye sockets bore a distinct almond shape to them, as well as her slim mouth which was covered with bright red lipstick, her complexion was fair, and her nose was short, but slightly rounded. Her irises bore an ugly, sulfur color.

"Mira, has he turned you also?" Revan asked sadly.

Mira looked uncertain for a split second but covered it well. "I embraced the truth about the Force, that's all. It was given to us so that we might impose Order on an untidy galaxy, and take from our enemies and whatever we have to from those who will serve us."

"Did you partake in the slaughter of your coworkers?!" Revan demanded to know.

"I...those who resisted were killed," was all she answered.

"So it was fear, then," Bastila noted. She approached, fingers close to her weapon as she felt the tingle of the Dark Side. "Listen to me, all of you. Nolin...Nolin is sick. And he's made you sick also."

"He said the woman might say something like this," Mira countered softly, hand going close to her own, black hilt with a flat emitter. Bastila had observed that Nolin had learned more from her in the hours since leaving in how he was training his dark servants: these new blades possessed adjustment dials near the base of the hilt, to control power settings. As for why he was still teaching them to make flat lightsaber blades, perhaps he simply liked the style, or was going with what was familiar.

"He said you would try and convince us that we were wrong somehow for embracing the power of our own emotions. The power of our own passions."

"Your passions are destroying everything around you, made you hurt your friends! Did Nolin kill Mical, or did he make you do it?" Revan asked spitefully.

Mira's long legs nearly buckled. "Mical...he's...dead?"

Revan grabbed Mira by the shoulder. "Damn you, he killed your husband! Does it matter now?!"

"Revan!" Bastila yelled, retreating back a step. "You're not helping!"

"Aw, kek," Carth mumbled, fumbling for his pistol.

Mira shrieked, shoving Revan away and activating her weapon. The flat blade, pink and with a scalpel-like tip hissed out of the weapon. She screamed, the ground cracking beneath her, as the other agents activated their own blades, each a different color, but more curved then Mira's had been, yet still resembling a single edged sword

Bastila's own double ended weapon turned on, blocking Mira's vicious overhand strike from cleaving the unprepared Revan in half. Mira set a hateful gaze on her, slamming her blade with hateful, rage filled blows that drove Bastila backward, twirling and back flipping over three other opponents who swiped at her. She landed, axial flipping again and jamming her blade into the throat of a turned human agent, ducking as two others swarmed her, only to be dropped by two headshots made by Carth, who quickly shot a third in the head as he charged. Revan had brought out Bastila's old lightsaber, defending mostly, an only occasionally doing an experimental swipe, having not yet fully understood the weapon he was using. To his advantage, neither did his attacker, a Rodian in a dark pinstripe suit, who was just as new to this way of fighting. All of the attackers were off balance except with Mira, who swung her weapon at Bastila's desperate to dominate the fight. But, Bastila, having already had years of experience patiently blocked with her duel weapon, twirling the weapon around her arms, anchoring it it to her skin at the points it made contact with the hilt, just like her father had taught her, occasionally shutting one blade off and then quickly back on, catching Mira off guard and forcing her to defend against Bastila's aggressive one handed style that was reinforced by telekinetically empowering her muscles so that her blows struck faster and harder, and fixing her arm and blade in place to block Mira's ruthless counter attacks, basically just a series of repeated horizontal and vertical strikes without any flare or imagination, just a determination to bring the opponent down at any cost. If Bastila had been feeling generous, she might have described Mira's style as resembling Djem So, a lightsaber combat form that also lacked subtlety, but was also dangerous and practical in the correct hands.

Revan in the meantime had finally made his first successful attack, his blade nicking the wrist of his rodian opponent, causing him to drop his weapon, clutching his hand. The surviving Dark Agents retreated backward, guarding with their weapons, unsure suddenly of their new powers.

Bastila was lacking such a thing, and quickly switched her front blade off, activating the one behind her. Reverse Shien.

Bastila swiped, with weapon inverted and in one horizontal fan-motion, her tip severed the stem connecting her emitter to the rest of her hilt.

Bastila got the surprise of her life.

The top of Mira's weapon exploded in a shower of sparks-but the blade did not die. As the flat emitter fell, Bastila almost too late realized Mira had built a back-up emitter of lesser strength deep into the hilt. The pink blade had now taken on a foil-like quality.

A light-foil that now raced for the throat of Bastila, her blade at completely the wrong position to defend, and with no time to correct that error or even dodge.

Bastila steeled herself for death-but the blow did not come.

Mira held the foil mere hairs from Bastila's scalp.

"What-what's happening?" she whispered. "Why am I attacking you?"

"It's the Dark Side, twisting your actions. Let go of your hate," Bastila encouraged, eyes never leaving the foil.

"This...this isn't me," Mira said, stepping back, yet still holding her blade active.

"Mira, would your husband want you to act like this?" Bastila asked. "A creature of mindless wrath? With no future other than its next battle?"

"I...no. Nolin..." Mira started crying. "That animal...he showed us what he had done to the others. I said I'd join him if he spared me..." Mira dropped to her knees.

"Mira," Bastila said, reaching out slightly, "The Darkness causes nothing but suffering. If you keep it in you, you risk spending your life in a living hell. Let it go, before it consumes you."

"I..." Mira stopped, gazing at her weapon.

"If this is the truth about the Force," she spat contemptuously. "Then I no longer wish to keep to it."

Mira tossed her weapon aside. The hilt shut off as it left her fingers.

She tore off her domino mask, tossing it aside. She stared at her former compatriots. "Its destroying us. Its evil. Get rid of it before it destroys you too."

"You shall be destroyed for treachery!" one of the agents, a Devaronian shouted, charging.

He was stopped, slammed backward by an invisible bubble unleashed by Revan. He flew backward, unconscious before he hit the ground.

The others broke off into a dead sprint.

Revan sighed, shutting off his blade. He stared at the Rodian he'd been fighting.

"Don't look at me man, I'm done. Screw getting cut by a laser sword all the time," the alien complained in his language.

Bastila shut off her blades, helping Mira up as the sulfur-color finally left the woman's eyes.

Revan took a step back. "Can she be trusted?"

"Can you?" Carth asked Revan.

"Mira rejected the Dark Side in time. She just needed to overcome her rage at learning about her husband's death," Bastila explained.

"Pardon me, Lass, but I'm still _plenty _mad about that," Mira corrected, tone darkening. "I just want to pay the sonavaschutta back before I retire."

Bastila sighed. "It'll have to do."


	6. The Ghost

Ossus, Parallel Universe.

Revan, Bastila, Carth, and Mira had finally reached the bird-like ship, after braving their way through the impact crater the ship had made more than five years ago. Bastila, eyes squinting through her white Domino mask, gazed upon the ruined hulk of the Dark Peregrine (Ebon Hawk of Universe 89-67)

Carth took a puff from his corncob pipe, his garish orange sweater tied around the waist of his brown slacks.

"Bet this thing must have been quite a sight once," he remarked.

Revan, his face concealed behind a bronze mask with a thin black visor to see out of, straightened his brown suit with white pinstripes and stared back at Carth. "Wait till you see the inside."

Bastila, her mind concerned with how she was going to stop Nolin, trudged forward at the deep gash of the massive ships underbelly were she saw excavation equipment set up. She was sweating in this universes idea of business wear., a white cotton shit with brown slacks and shoes and a domino mask.

Mira, clad in a green leather bodysuit, her fine skin and fiery red hair dropping in the jungle heat of Ossus, swore under her breath. "We never should have dug this damn thing up Revan. It's caused nothing but problems."

"Mira, I admit that mistakes have been made, but it was for a good cause," Revan replied, inwardly distraught at the fact that he might very well have to live like a hermet for the rest of his life, as Bastila had told him he would have to. But what choice did he have? Unless his Jedi grew powerful, The Mandalorians would run roughshod over the Galaxy.

Mira snorted. "So you keep saying." Nolin had killed her husband Mical and lied about it, using her ignorance of his fate to turn her to the dark side. She had vowed to snap his neck for that.

Bastila, still silent, crept through the site and found a lift lowering itself into the ship proper. The four clambered into it. Revan pressed the lift and lowered themselves into the ship innards...

Coruscant, Parallel Universe.

Jedi Agency Interrogation Room 11-38

Juhani, thinking back, should have realized that convincing the Jedi of this universe to believe that an army of psychics was on their way to annihilate their head quarters and either kill or turn them all was a difficult proposition at best.

But she had figured that bringing in a technology none of them had ever seen before, a statue resembling a person in the lotus position that doubled as a weapons fabrication unit and holocron, would at least win her some points.

Instead, the Jedi, who she had come to find were quite the jaded and cynical bunch, had instead endlessly grilled her and Caderous, going over their story with a fine tooth comb, eager to find any error in a story that she rigidly stuck to.

This universe's Vrook, a man in his sixties, with a five day old beard, a sweat stained white shirt, frayed brown slacks and scuffed black shoes, ran a hand over his bald scalp, crowned on the sides with iron colored hair, much like her own.

"Okay, lass, let's go over it, one more bloody time," he spoke in an accent unfamiliar to Juhani. "State your name."

"Juhani of Cathar," Juhani answered. She was still dressed in the red leather Agency clothes she had been provided, the domino mask and red beanie removed.

"Age?"

"Twenty-Two standard years."

"And you're here for-?"

"I have information vital to survival of your agency," Juhani answered, squirming in frustration. She leaned across the durasteel desk bolted to the floor of the grey room with a single two-way mirror set into one side of the wall. "You would listen, if you know what good for you," she added in her still-imperfect syntax. Her fur bristled in the heat of the overhead lamp.

"Well, you gotta admit, lass, that your story's pretty wild. I been on this bloomin' job twenty years and I ain't never heard the kind-o-swill you put out. 'Parallel Universes!' Me and the boys had quite the laugh when you told it to us the first time. Detective Zhar is still trying to trace where that fancy little doohickey of yours is from."

"If you just examine it, surely you see it not anything you have laid eyes on before."

"So? Technology advances all the time. Democratic Union doesn't have the monopoly on advanced gadgets and the like. Still can't hold a bloody candle to the Infinite Empire, and they had some fancy little doohickeys themselves, I'm told. Had a factory that could make literally anything. Orbiting a star, or some such," Vrook replied, taking a puff from his large pipe. "Now lass, it's been a fun little story you been telling me and all, But I got your file here. Says you're not even out of the academy yet. Why dontcha jus' quit horsin' around and tell me the truth about where you got that little doohickey from and quit wasting our time, or we toss you, Alek and the Mandalorian boyo with ya' into a nice comfy cell, so you can both sleep off whatever it is you probably on."

Juhani rubbed her eyes. She thought about using the Force, but there was no telling how they would react to that. The Jedi of this universe had never explored the Force for anything beyond clairvoyance or healing. They might panic and call a riot team down on her.

As Juhani debated, a knock on the simple wood door made Vrook wearily rise and walk over cracking it open slightly.

Juhani couldn't hear what the other person was saying but she made out some of Vrooks words.

"How long has he been like that?"

"...What do you mean it just turned on?"

Vrook turned back to Juhani, his expression of disinterest now changed to one of concern.

"Looks like yer' little doohickey just turned itself on and put one-o-me men into a coma," he spoke tersely. "And apparently the receptionist just checked you in downstairs when you showed up a few seconds ago."

Juhani closed her golden eyes. "Told you so."

Ossus.

"There was so much we found on the first day of excavating. Maps, computers that worked faster than anything we had ever seen. Fantastic ship designs. Weapons-" Revan continued, heading first through the ship's engine room. Bastila saw the rusted hunks of what had once been the powerful ion engines and knew on instinct that they were probably more powerful than anything she had ever seen, seeing as how, when the two rusted barrel-like engines were put together, were about the size of her body, yet they powered the entire ship. The engine chamber was octagonal in shape, with warning signs in five different languages on almost everything. She could still detect a faint glow from the oval computer consoles. The great chamber was darkened, the ruddy red lights on the twisted and bent walkways all that was left of the emergency power in this section.

"What caused it to crash?" Carth wondered. "Ship like this is pretty advanced. Musta took a lot to bring her down."

"What logs we could recover indicate there was some sort of problem in the cryo pods holding the prisoners. One of the crewman, person we know only as 'Big Z' suffered a complete emotional breakdown and caused a massive systemic failure while in transit," Revan answered.

"Mean anything to you, Bastila?" Carth asked.

"Maybe," she answered non-committal. "The presence of the Dark Side is strong here. Any number of things could have happened."

"Such as?" Mira pressed, eager to understand what they were up against.

"The crew member might have been driven mad by the power of whatever he was exposed to, and thats the tamest scenario. Often it's much worse. You could be dealing with...a presence."

Carth went still. "You mean like a ghost? That actually happens?"

"More often than you might think," Bastila answered. "It would actually account for a great deal, such as Nolin's behavior. Dark Side spirits can corrupt even the most noble of us. It happened to Exar Kun."

Mira blinked. "The CEO of that plumbing company?"

Bastila snorted. "Unsurprising. Seems he's full of it no matter the dimension."

Everybody snickered at this, though only Bastila actually got the joke in full.

"Hey, didn't that statue thingamajig say it could contact us?" Carth asked.

"It did indeed say this," an electronic voice sounded out in the chamber. "Bastila Shan of Universe 11-99 is hereby granted limited administrative access. Please state a query."

"What caused the catastrophic failure?" Bastila asked, dreading the answer.

"At approximately five standard years ago, at 0300 hours, the Wookie crewmate Zaalbaar went berserk and killed his way to the ship's cargo hold. Cause of break down believe to be related to spectral entity marked for quarantine in a pocket dimension; The Dark Underlord of Universe 47-78."

"State the nature of this entity," Bastila requested, rubbing her tongue against her braces out of nervousness.

"The Dark Underlord hails from a dimension where the Jedi Order is viewed with almost universal suspicion and fear by other Force Users. Any time the Order ever tried to expand its teachings beyond the walls of its academies, The Dark Underlord would be incarnated to oppose them. It has taken many forms. Each time the Order was able to kill its host body, but the Underlord dealt enough damage to them to leave them too busy rebuilding to even think of spreading their ways. It is classified as a Multiversal Threat, much like your own dimension's Darth Sangraal," The Device answered from halfway across the galaxy.

"Is there any way to stop it?" Carth asked.

"The Dark Underlord's newest host body was ambushed by Jolee Bindo of Universe 89-67 after we learned of the disturbance in the Force the Underlord created. The body was encased in ultra premium Nullification Resin to cancel out its dark power. The Underlord's taint is strong however, and the resin was compromised perhaps from the very beginning."

"Revan also mentioned Nolin had gotten his hands on some sort of tome. Did it belong to the Underlord?" Bastila asked.

"The Tome you mention is most likely the tome of Darth Revan of Universe 89-67. It contains spells for the resurrection of spirits from the afterlife. It is likely that the Dark Underlords spirit cannot really affect this current reality, and that Nolin is attempting to find a spell that will allow its spirit to manifest fully in this dimension."

"Wait, 'Darth' Revan?" Revan asked, head tilting to one side in curiosity.

"Access to Darth Revan files are off limits to his/her multiversal counterparts," the Device answered.

Revan shook his head. "Figures."

"Was Nolin here?" Mira asked.

"Officer Rae Nolin was flagged by this vessels stringent security protocols many times, so he never truly gained anything valuable from his experience other than the unsecured tome. He departed one hour ago."

Bastila swore loudly. "Than this whole trip was for nothing!"

"Correction. There may still be hope. This vessels multiversal transponder is still active. Damage to systems prevented signaling by ship computer and this device. It must be activated by a living being, and it must be done at the bridge," the device answered. "You must hurry. What remains of ship navigational instruments calculate that Nolin's forces are heading for this dimensions version of Coruscant. Ship audio recording captured him saying that he intends to travel to this reality's Star Forge soon after."

"The Space Factory!" Revan said in a panicked whisper. "I'd forgotten all about it-"

"Give me the coordinates," Bastila said. "We may need to alert the military."

Revan paused. "One thing at a time, Bastila. I still think we can stop Nolin. There's no reason to go compromising what may be our only hope of stopping the Mandalorians."

Bastila's eyes flashed a bright orange. "_Give me the coordinates, mongrel,_" she commanded, her voice gaining an echo and dropping an octave.

Revan, almost unwillingly, reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a datapad. "Here you...go..." he answered, suddenly feeling nausea.

"Wish I could do that to avoid paying taxes," Carth joked.

Bastila rolled her eyes. "If I had a credit for every time I heard that..."

"What will activating the transponder due?" Mira asked.

"It will signal personnel in this ships Universe of Origin to launch an incursion in this reality to investigate. Go, you do not have much time," the device answered.

Coruscant.

"How long she been like this?" Juhani asked, peering down at the cadet. She'd been escorted from interrogation into the dull white infirmary. The beds were simple white cots with a black metal frame, and primitive looking machines were housed next to all of them. This universe didn't appear to have developed Kolto Tanks. The Doctors crowded around the cadet-who looked suspiciously similar to the doe-eyed, brown haired, fair skinned padawan Belaya, from Juhani's dimension. She was still in her Agency clothes, her domino mask had been removed.

"Twelve minutes," answered a crisp female voice with a Coruscanti accent. "All attempts to revive her have been unsuccessful."

Juhani turned and stared as this Universe's version of Atris-impeccably dressed in an all white suit with a skirt that went midway to her knees and long white high heels with white stockings, the look finished by a pair of thick, black rimmed glasses, that slightly magnified her eyes. She looked slightly younger than Juhani's Atris, but that did not surprise the Cathar: The pressures Atris endured daily in Juhani's universe would add a few years to anybody.

"I take it you are the so-called 'Interloper', Atris stated sharply.

"Atris! Long time no see since day ago!" Juhani joked.

When Atris did not laugh, Juhani realized she had made what is known as an 'inside joke'. She cleared her throat. "I mean, uh, I have information vital to survival of Jedi Agency. You would be wise in listening."

"Ah, yes, your story about Officer Nolin," Atris replied with a click of her tongue. "Much though it pains me to admit, security footage from the Qel-Droma Arcology has at least partly corroborated your tale. I am the senior Internal Affairs Officer. Tell me everything you know about Nolin and Revan."

For what seemed like the umpteenth time, Juhani carefully explained everything that happened. Atris nether rolled her eyes nor made a snide remark as Vrook had. She simply typed down everything on a small datapad as she sat on an empty cot.

When she was finished, she arose promptly. "You do realize that this will be very difficult for .the Senior Investigators to believe. It's like something out of a bloody pulp novel."

Juhani folded her hands behind her back. "But every word is truth. Search your feelings. You will know."

"Lady, searching your feelings is for therapists or a mid-life crisis. For what it's worth, I believe that YOU believe you're telling the truth. I don't know why you look like that Cathar cadet we're holding downstairs, or why Cadet Belaya is unconscious but if you can tell us how that device that incapacitated her works, I'll see to it you get off easy-"

Cadet Belaya shot up in bed with a scream. Juhani and Atris were immediately beside her.

"Cadet, are you alright? Do you know where you are-?" Atris started.

Belaya grabbed Atris roughly by the collar.

"Get the station on full alert! We're all in danger! Terrible danger! He's coming, and he'll kill or turn all of us if we're not prepared! He's coming!" she shouted, rivers of sweat gliding down her face.

"Easy, dear, slow down, who's coming?" Atris asked pointedly, feeling a cold chill on the back of her neck.

Belaya stared. "Dark Underlord...Nolin...he's coming..." she tucked herself into a fetal position and began rocking back and forth."He's coming..."

"And who told you this?" Atris asked, dreading the answer.

Belaya didn't even look this time. "The Device."

Bastila had sent Revan and Mira back to the Ebon Hawk with orders to land it at the crash site. She and Carth had continued alone, mainly because she trusted him, and mainly because she didn't want Revan learning anything about his other versions that might give him ideas.

"So, Bastila, do you have a plan? I mean for dealing with Nolin?"

"I'm gonna try and turn him from the Dark Side. If that doesn't work, I'll skewer the bastard," Bastila stated bluntly, holding up her double bladed lightsaber that she had constructed using materials from this universe: A weapon whose hilt was the length of a standard hilt, with two flat silver emitters on either end. The grip was covered in dark brown leather.

"W-what if he's too powerful?" Carth stammered as they made their way to the twisting wreckage of the ship corridors. Everything tilted to one side. Electrical wires and panels hung loosely like leaves on a dead tree, and they had stumbled upon more than one mummified corpse.

"You don't wanna know the answer to that," she replied, vaulting over a hunk of debris. Carth followed swiftly.

Bastila however, landed at a bad angle and she lost her footing, when Carth tried to catch her, her panicked grasping accidentally dragged him with her as they tumbled into an adjacent chamber of the ship.

The lights in the chamber came on swiftly, and as the pair righted themselves by standing on a pile of debris, they found the chamber had been displaced slightly from the ship's innards by the crash. It was an unsteady walk, at best, in the large square room, pearl colored in appearance.

It had once been a museum of some kind as far as Bastila could tell, and there seemed to be only one subject: Darth Revan, or his variants. Collections or copies of various versions of his or her distinctive armor lay somewhat intact in shattered transparisteel chambers.

"Device," Bastila called out to the A.I. guiding them. "Are all these the genuine armors of their owner?"

"Yes. All of them were either donated by their Revans, or collected off of their Revan's corpse."

Carth went toward a version of the armor that had clearly been fitted for a female frame. It was black, and had the look and feel of bondage gear crossed with a cat suit. The cape was black leather and so was the mask, which bore the thin visor so common to the Dark Lord's armor, and the mask connected to the rest of the armor via means of a spiked choker.

"Bet there's a story behind this one," Carth whistled.

The Device's answer gave Carth a shock. "Darth Revan of Universe 84-92. Formerly Morgana Onasi. Prophesied in her dimension to be a sort of 'Dark Side Messiah', who would reform and lead the Sith to permanent domination of the Galaxy and of how the Force is taught. The Jedi Order of that dimension panicked and sent a team of assassins after her, which resulted in the death of that Universe's Carth Onasi, and her young son. She swore revenge, reformed the Sith, and subsequently murdered the entire Jedi Council, the Senate, and the Supreme Chancillor in a surprise attack on Coruscant."

"How was she stopped?" Bastila asked, horrified.

"She wasn't. The surviving Jedi had to abandon their universe completely and only returned after recruiting several other versions of Revan to wipe out her and her followers. She killed all but one of the Revans who finally succeeded when she used a technique to dissolve Onasi and her followers into the Force, and subsequently wiped out all surface life on Korriban as a result. The Order was wiped out there. No one has since assumed the mantle of either Jedi or Sith. It's quite peaceful over there, last we looked," the Device explained.

Carth was silent for a moment, processing the surreal truth of what he'd just been told. He moved on to another version of Revan's armor, this one adorned in the image of a black tree with red leaves, and wrapped a thick but tattered black cape and hood. The mask seemed to be made of a black wood with a red visor.

"Whats this guys story?" Carth asked.

"Darth Revan of Universe 89-67, also the home dimension of this ship," the Device answered. "The Order of 89-67 achieved superiority both through superior technique and superior technology. The Sith of my dimension are primitives who associate Nature with the Dark Side of the Force. They shun technology and focus on controlling organic material, believing that is the path to true power. Revan was originally a Jedi Knight who was corrupted when the Sith captured him and altered his body, allowing him to be absorbed into a tree alive with the spirit of Sith Naturalists. He emerged as Darth Revan and went on a search for the fabled Star Garden, which would allow him to shut down all technology and 'corrupt' whole planets with and overgrowth of organic life. Those who were not strong enough to adapt would die, and the survivors would be guided by the Sith."

"He met a bad end too?" Bastila asked. If the Battle with Revan usually ended in his/her death it gave her great cause for hope that 'her' version would suffer the same fate.

"The Vrook Lamarr of 89-67 triumphed when he doused the Sith in petrol and flicked a lit cigarette at him. The Order hunted down and exterminated all the Naturalists afterward, destroyed all of their teachings. The Sith haven't troubled us since," the Device answered. "This device would like to remind you that we are on a schedule."

Bastila and Carth nodded, and struggled their way back up the corridor they had fallen through.

"I wonder if I'll be allowed to keep one of the armors after this is over. Sure would make a great presentation piece," Carth mused as they went on. "Morgana wouldn't look too bad in the cat suit-armor, come to think of it..."

"Mind out of the gutter, Onasi."

"Whatever you say, princess."

"I am 'not' a princess-" Bastila began to protest, but she stopped at a a turbo door leading to the next area. She could feel nothing but cold on the other side.

"Warning!" The Device's electronic voice blared. "Dark Side collectivization in progress. Reccomend immediate defensive posture."

"What's that mean?" Carth asked pointedly, grip tightening on his revolver like blaster.

"It means wait here, Carth. I must face this alone," Bastila muttered, expression grim.

"I'm not letting you go in there alone!"

"You're no match for what's in there. It'll destroy you. Wait here. If you don't hear from me in maybe ten minutes, run," she replied with naked command.

"Wait!" he said, grabbing her arm. "What IS in there?!"

Her eyes squinted as she stared at the door with the cold feeling on the other side of it.

"Only what I take with me," she answered quietly, flicking her hand gently and prying the door open with telekinesis.

She stepped into darkness, and she saw Carth's worried face before she forced the door shut.

Now totally enclosed in darkness, the feeling of cold increased until her fingers were numb.

"Welcome, Jedi Bastila. It has been a long time since last we spoke," said a female voice that was sweet like honey.

"That voice-!" Bastila gasped.

A red lightsaber illuminated the darkness. The person who stepped out had slightly tanned skin, her face and lips were heart shaped, and her hair was a floppy chocolate brown that didn't go past her ears. Her lithe athletic body was swathed in a sheer opaque black dress that didn't quite cling to her figure. Her weapon was of a special make, designed as a thin, glossy black cane with a round handle.

The darkness around Bastila changed, and she suddenly was in a cold oppressive bunker lined with Jedi Alchemy wards on the walls and floor. Behind Bastila's opponent was an open cryo tube.

"Darth Kitsun..." Bastila trailed off. Her father had feared the power of this particular Sith, who had attempted to bring to fruition a dark prophecy amidst the backdrop of the Jedi's war with Exar Kun, and had been stopped by her second apprentice, a blind man she had tricked into her service. The Order had imprisoned her under the Coruscant temple's catacombs and tombs at first, later transferring her cryotube to underneath the Shan Family Estate at her father's insistence, eager to keep an eye on her, and to finally rid himself of his dread of her manipulative nature.

"You've grown. And you're much more powerful than your father ever was," Kitsun remarked. "Why do you cling to the Order? Are they your replacement parents?"

"This...this is impossible," Bastila said more to herself than the ghost. "You're not even dead. Hell, you're not even in this dimension."

"The Dark Side allows many things to happen which otherwise wouldn't. A fact the Jedi Order will never be able to appreciate," Kitsun stated, giving a flourish. "You're stronger than your masters. If you would just accept that, you could break free of the chains they place upon you."

"You will never convince me to betray the Order, whatever you are. You aren't Darth Kitsun. The real Kitsun cares almost nothing for the Sith creed. You're a pretender."

"Kitsun" chuckled slightly, angling her weapon and gliding closer to Bastila, who activated her lightsaber, two flat yellow blades with a diamond shaped tip springing out.

"I don't know, Bastila," Kitsun remarked. "I feel 'plenty' real."

Kitsun struck, cracking her weapon like a whip against Bastila's guard, who rolled out of the way before charging, spinning her saber staff furiously, hoping to end this quickly.

Kitsun's figure simply glided out of the way of the strikes, thrusting with her cane weapon and grazing Bastila on the shoulder, who cried out and retreated, holding her arm.

"You shall only triumph against me by embracing your hatred, Shan," Kitsun called out mockingly.

Bastila's response was to slam a pulse of Force Energy into the Sith's path. Kitsun slapped the pulse aside with a wave of her hand.

"I'm a Lady of the Sith, girl," Kitsun sneered, her eyes glowing a poisonous yellow. "Your Jedi tricks are nothing."

Bastila was suddenly screaming as a mass of spiders painfully erupted from her stomach, biting her everywhere as she screamed, before her shrieks were choked off by her suddenly vomiting up a puddle of human fingers.

Kitsun chuckled as she watched Bastila squirm on the floor. "Embrace your hatred and fear, and I shall show you how to become as powerful as I am now. You could rule this galaxy with my help."

Bastila, fear racing through her, considered for a split second the merits of the spirit's offer.

Years of Jedi training allowed her to reassert herself.. She imposed calm on her mind, realizing that trying to win through martial might was a fools game.

She forced away the horrifying illusion the spirit had thrown at her, and went into a meditative position on the floor.

Kitsun snarled. "So be it," she hissed, raising her hands.

A bolt of lightning erupted from them, arcing toward Bastila, who did not move.

Bastila opened her eyes just before the lightning could hit. Her eyes glowed a bright orange again, and the lightning stopped just outside a bubble she had set up around her body

_"Foul spirit!" _Bastila hissed in that echo-voice. _"I command you to disperse into chaos where you belong!"_

"NO!" Kitsun shouted, losing her form and becoming a moving, living shadow. "I'll not be denied! I have rotted too long in this rusting hulk and I WILL escape!"

The shadow spirit flew at her. All Bastila could do was steel her will as the spirit flung itself into her body.

Her body jerked suddenly, flinging itself backward into a wall, than sliding up it and onto the ceiling. Bastila, screamed, clutching her head as the war of wills began.

Her body flung itself to the floor, than to the ceiling, than back again, sliding of its own accord across the ground as the Padawan tried to reassert her will over her own body.

As the battle for dominance raged, memories that were not her own began to seep into Bastila's psyche, horrifyingly making her forget some of her own memories. There simply wasn't enough room. She literally felt herself becoming whatever this thing inside her had been.

In desperation she tapped into her fear and anger, amplifying the emotions across her mental landscape in a frantic attempt to burn the spirit out. The thing in her screamed, redoubling its efforts.

More memories began to seep in. Vicious ones. Toying with people's minds before breaking them utterly, executing people for ridiculous infractions, or simply contradicting her. The poisonous hate of this creature as it seduced its own version of Ulic Qel-Droma-

"NOOO!" Bastila screamed, throwing all her will and power against the evil spirit, who finally abandoned the fight and scrambled out of her body.

The shadow spirit took another form, this of a disgusting, mummified woman with long black hair and greying skin, covered in a purple dress that split down the sides for freedom of movement. It looked at her with empty eyesockets, yet Bastila could feel the pure loathing pouring out of them. She almost vomited at the thought that this thing had been in her. It lay on the ground, helpless before her. What power it had conserved over the years it had haunted this vessel had been utterly spent in its struggle with Bastila. It had only enough power now to make itself visible.

The Spirit held up a hand. "I hold the key to true power. I can still guide you. You can still be the most powerful Sith in his-"

Bastila's eyes flashed orange. "BURN!" she screeched, focusing all of her power on the spirit.

The spirit screeched, flaying wildly as ethereal fire erupted across its ectoplasmic surface. The thing's form fluctuated wildly, expanding, contracting, and rending itself apart as Bastila's power chewed through it, before destroying her utterly. The spirit exploded in a shower of bright red particles.

For a few moments, Bastila concentrated her power on the area the spirit had been, making absolutely sure there was no chance of it reforming. She looked around. The cryo bunker had vanished, replaced by the destitute, rotting area that had once been the cargo bay.

Bastila dropped to her knees, sobbing. The battle had cost her dearly. The spirit's memories had completely overwritten some of her earlier memories-about three years worth. Three years replaced by memories of unimaginable cruelty. She gazed at the mess of jumbled around shattered cryo-pods, some with corpses sticking out of them, and her eyes fell on one pod she knew by instinct had once belonged to that evil entity.

"Device?" she called out.

"Area purified. Well done," the electronic voice called out. "This device surmises that you successfully destroyed the spirit of Universe 45-90's Aleema Keto, who totally destroyed the Republic and the Jedi Order of her Universe by her mastery of Force Illusions to drive them insane. Her universe still has yet to fully recover, but a Jedi contingent was left there to rebuild."

Bastila glowered at this. Now some of the memories were making sense.

And worse-she now possessed Aleema's knowledge of Sith techniques. All of them.


	7. Assualt On Precinct J

Coruscant.

Where Juhani had failed, the statue had succeeded. Agent after agent approached the statue, convinced of the threat and of Juhani's story after Belaya had demonstrated her potent new strengths in the Force. The statue had been set up in an inner courtyard that had a floor of brown and white veined marble, full of white and brown striped roses, as a Agency forensics team ran an assortment of tests after the statue "Flash" trained each individual, sending them into a twelve minute coma. The sky was exposed overhead, The black clouds signaling yet another thunderstorm.

The Senior Investigators (Equivalent to Jedi High Council) had finally showed. Their own version of Vandar, a small alien in a custom made black and white striped suit with a feather in his hat, had pressed Juhani relentlessly about what kind of defenses would work best against an army of Dark Jedi... Juhani, herself inexperienced, could only give a few vague suggestions that she remembered from her own classes. Canderous had been freed. He himself wore a dark pinstripe suit and slouch hat, his face covered by an elaborately engraved silver mask with a t-shaped visor. He had been given back his repeater, a blaster carbine with a stock and a drum-shaped energy clip. He walked up to her, his posture denoting relief.

"Seems like they finally started to take us seriously. I shall signal for my clan to rally at the Jedi Precinct. How are things on your end?" the Mandalorian asked.

"The Device is training as fast as possible, but it will be close. I am not even really certain how much time we actually have before Nolin arrives," Juhani answered. "But it do or die, no?"

"Nolin and his cronies are gonna be the ones who die. My clan will see to that. It's just time to do things the old fashioned way," Canderous replied.

The pair paused as another agent woke up, shaking out of fear at the threat the statue had shown him. The Device called to the human, and the human approached the statue cautiously.

An aperture in the milky jade colored statue opened in the chest, and out floated a simple lightsaber with an unadorned hilt carried on a repulsor field. The Jedi took it and activated it.

The blade did not spring out of the hilt as a normal lightsaber did. It instead coalesced into existence, structured like a long thin rectangular block with a lattice pattern, blue in color.

"Might be fun..." Canderous trailed off.

Juhani turned to Canderous. "Pardon?"

"Might be fun hopping from reality to reality, trying to find that best of all possible worlds. Compare notes, if nothing else," Canderous said. "I thought I'd seen everything. Done everything. Makes you realize how limited a single lifetime actually is."

"One lifetime all we get," Juhani replied. "Best not to waste it."

"Probably right about that," Canderous said quietly.

A Jedi suddenly barged into the courtyard where every agent had lined up.

"Guys!" the rodian agent yelled. "Our defensive network just picked up a small contingent of frieghters entering the system! We have forty-five minutes before he's here!"

Juhani raced to the statue, brushing past the agents.

"Device!" she called out. "Signal Bastila, we have problem!"

Ossus.

Bastila had finally been rejoined by Carth, after her battle with Aleema Keto's spirit in the cargo bay. No sooner had they finished patting themselves on the back at having got this far that the Device contacted them again from halfway across the galaxy.

"The Juhani of 11-99 wishes me to inform you that Nolin and his army have arrived in the Coruscant sector," the Electronic voice sounded over what was left of the vessel's comm system.

"That's impossible!" Bastila said. "It's twelve hour trip in either direction!. How could he have gotten there so soon?"

"He possibly modified his ships to run on schematics found on this vessel," the Device answered.

"Can't we just do the same thing?" Bastila asked.

Carth shook his head immediately. "It would take hours to recalibrate the Hawks engines. Hell, we might have to rip 'em out entirely and pray we don't explode after retrofitting the new designs."

"Well, Nolin did it somehow! We have to think," Bastila exclaimed pinching the bridge of her nose, trying to control her stress-and forcing back down the Sith Knowledge she had absorbed from Keto's spirit.

"Unrequired. One working shuttle fitted with my universe's hyperspace technology remains. It is in this bay. It need only be freed to fly," The Device added. "Cargo bay launch doors compromised. Recommend use of telekinesis to rend open outer hull. Activate Multiversal Transponder on bridge to signal reinforcements before proceeding."

Bastila nodded and began searching the bay for the supposedly intact shuttle. She spotted it, a strange, battered crimson metal sphere resting on a metal tripod built into the floor and partly submerged on one side by shattered crates and cryo-pods.

"I'll head for the bridge. Captain. You get in that thing and see how it works. Give me something by the time I get back," Bastila instructed.

Carth nodded and Bastila bolted for the bridge, eager to get there before she suffered any more 'surprises'.

Carth made his way through the shattered bay, approaching the sphere. When he reached it, all he could do, was mutter, "Great. How do I open the damn thing?"

Bastila struggled her way up the corridors, littered with junk and corpses. A dank, musty smell, filled her nostrils and she coughed, trying to focus on anything but the Sith teachings that were now at her disposal.

This whole damn mission had gone violently wrong, and as usual, a war was brewing between Force Users because somebody had decided to get greedy. Bastila wasn't sure whether or not she was going to fulfil her council mandate to assassinate Revan-finding out that he had to give up a normal life to master the Force seemed punishment enough for his treachery. But she was almost certain she'd have to end up killing Nolin.

Then she could worry about how to rid herself of Aleema's foul memories and teachings. What a nightmare.

She at last reached the bridge. The turbo-door opened and Bastila stepped into the oval bridge. Blackened and twisted long ago, by the crash and the subsequent fire, the sensitive posts and equipment were recessed into pits deep in the floor, as they were on standard dreadnought class starships in Bastila's universe. Burnt skeletons lay strewn about and Bastila got a mild feeling of discomfort upon spotting one in the tattered remains of what had obviously been a very bright orange jumpsuit with the name ONASI stitched out on the nametag. The ceiling had collapsed and the viewport was cracked and exposed, allowing her to glimpse the jungle of Ossus around the impact crater the vessel had made. Sunlight streamed in from various other cracks in the ceiling.

She glimpsed a single glowing blue terminal to the left of her, in the crew pit. She hopped down and approached it.

Bastila was totally unprepared for what came next.

A full color hologram suddenly sprang up in front of her. The hologram took the form of...Bastila.

Or rather, a version of Bastila. She was dressed in a tight fitting brown bodysuit with white gloves and boots, Her hair was done in a single ponytail. She was clutching her side, bleeding badly out of her mouth and the audio began to play, allowing the living Shan to hear screams and alarms going off in the background.

The Holo-Bastila coughed before starting.

"If you're seeing this," the hologram spoke, her voice slightly gruffer and less cultured than her living counterpart. "It means everything I feared has come to pass. It means I'm dead. Zaalbaar...driven crazy by that...thing...we were transporting. Sabotaged the entire damned ship. If you're a Jedi from my universe...sorry about all this. If you're anyone else but a Jedi, then leave if you value your life. But if you have reached this place...then activate the transponder to signal my universe. And when you find the the Dark Underlord...part of me is hoping you don't...but if you do...destroy it. Destroy it utterly, if it is within your power. It's an abomination. The code to activate the transponder is one one dash three eight, the same designation the prime universe has. Good luck, and may the Force be with you."

The Hologram derezzed.

"Good looking out," Bastila whispered, approaching the terminal.

Some quirk of the electrical system conspired against Bastila's nerves one last time. The motorized chair next to the terminal swiveled around and Bastila shrieked when she saw the mummified corpse of her own counterpart leaning back, jaw open.

After she stopped shrieking, she tentatively brushed past 'her' corpse and punched in the numbers on the holographic keyboard.

"Transponder activated. Well done," the Device intoned. "Please proceed to the cargo bay."

Bastila was all too glad to leave the bridge, having faced her own mortality in far too literal a manner.

When she reached the Cargo, she found Revan and Mira waiting with Carth.

"Onasi signaled us as we approached on the Hawk. We going back to Coruscant in this thing?" Mira asked glibly, having cleaned up her dark green leather body suit. Bastila discomfortingly noted the look of quiet despair etched in her red haired companions almond shaped eyes and mouth, her fair skin still a little pale from her brush with the Dark Side. Revan was more sullen than ever, no longer holding himself up as confidently as he used to. He occasionally stole looks from behind his impassive bronze face mask.

"Yes. Onasi, did you figure it out?"

"To a degree. It opens on voice command, which that statue thingy was kind enough to override," Carth replied. He turned back to the spherical ship. "I don't see how we're going to fly her out of here though. This place is a mess."

"Leave that to me," Bastila responded nonchalantly, cracking her knuckles as she stretched out her hands to the ceiling, taking deep breaths.

"Size doesn't matter, size doesn't matter, size doesn't matter..." she repeated in whispers to herself, concentrating with her eyes closed.

She did not allow herself to feel joy as she heard the rending of metal above her. It would have distracted her, and joy at ones power was an emotion only a Sith could appreciate.

The tearing of metal grew louder as she spread her arms outward, clenching her fists as she finally widened the gash enough for the sphere shuttle to pass through. Sunlight gleamed through, and Bastila felt somehow energized by the presence of more light.

"Open," Carth said. An aperture parted on the side of the shuttle and they all climbed into the surprisingly spacious interior, but they were awkwardly tilted to one side in their seats as the hatch closed behind them.

Carth fumbled at suddenly active holographic controls.

"WAY above my pay grade," he muttered as he started the launch sequence in the exact manner the Device had instructed him to before Bastila's arrival.

They felt themselves dislodge from the magnetic tripod holding them in place. The ship righted itself automatically.

"Impressive," Revan breathed as a flashing display on the console instructed Carth to set coordinates.

He typed in 000-the hyperspace address for Coruscant.

Bastila was so glad to finally be leaving this evil place that she almost didn't appreciate the fact that the shuttle rocketed them out of the atmosphere at speeds far greater than the fastest cruiser in her universe would even try to attempt.

Coruscant.

The shuttle exited out of hyperspace a half hour later.

"Most impressive," Revan breathed in the darkened interior. Carth took manual control and a holo screen popped up allowing him to steer the ship through the atmosphere.

"I wonder if who's ever coming for that rusted heap on Ossus will let us keep the shuttle. Flies like a dream..." Carth noted as the ship flew at high speed to the Jedi Precinct.

Bastila felt a knot of ice seize her stomach as she sensed Nolin nearby. All of them grimaced as they saw a pillar of smoke rising from the cathedral like building made of white stone and stained glass windows nestled at the center of skyscrapers with figures of animals carved into them and designed around the precinct in a circular fashion. Atop the precinct's slanted roof sat five bell towers in a square pattern, with the largest in the center, all seemed to be constructed of red brick.

The thunderstorm raged outside the precinct, lightning flashing violently outside, and from what Bastila could tell from the holoscreen, she spotted tell tale flashes between bars of light held by men and women below.

"Captain, set us down!" Bastila said, once the shuttle had gotten close enough to see the color of the combatants clothing.

"Are you crazy? Not in the middle of that melee!" Carth objected.

"Then set me above it! I can make it from here!"

Revan grabbed her by the shoulder. "From this height you'll turn into a sack of jelly when you hit!"

Bastila squinted at him. "That last thing I need is a lecture about safety and restraint from the unthinking fool who caused all of this."

Revan withdrew his hand as though she were a snake. Carth opened the hatch, and Bastila leapt out into the war below.

She focused her power, channeling it into the bottom of her feet and the palms of her hands as she fell through the stinging rain. As she impacted on the marble path leading to the steps of the precinct, an invisible, explosive wave channeled itself through the ground, instantly killing two black clothed Dark Agents that were about to finish off a Jedi Agent wearing an all white business suit. A red Twilek man by the looks of it.

Not pausing to check on him, she threw herself into another fight, this one between Dark Agents and Jedi wearing gas masks that covered the face entirely and utilizing a lightsaber with a strange, thin, rectangular-cube appearance to the blade she had never seen before. The Agents brown and white business suit seemed to be of higher quality, the pinstripes broader, the black tie and fedora shinier.

Bastila surprised the Dark Agents, still fighting with flat lightsaber blades, these a dark, blood red, and bearing the appearance of a two-edged sword. They turned to engage her and were suddenly fending off lethally fast spinning attacks from the Padawan's own double bladed flat-saber. She easily turned aside their inexperienced slashes and stabs, with spinning swipes of her own blade. But the pair of agents fought doggedly, determined to bring her down or die trying.

Bastila, her impatience already at an all time high with how this whole thing had gone down, exploded with frustration, tapping some of Aleema's illusory techniques. With a flick of her wrists, she reduced the Dark Agents to cringing on the ground, her trick having convinced them that they were infirm old men on life support.

When she noticed her distinct satisfaction, she let out a cry of shame, pulling the horrible illusion out of their minds and erasing it. She tried not to think about how she had just tapped the Dark Side as she effortlessly blocked a strike from a Dark Agent who had charged at her from behind, parried his second attempt and then beheaded him with her other blade.. The rain kept stinging her face all the while, the wind howling as if to give voice to the cacophony of violence this had descended to.

Bastila gripped another Dark Agent with telekinesis, hurling him into his fellows, using him as a club as she slammed him with the force of a cannonball, killing the cluster of Dark Agents instantly. Using it to survive was one thing, using it for simple cruelty was quite another.

Four more enemies surrounded her, all bringing their sabers down at the same time.

She blocked the strikes in front and back of her, twirling out of the way of the strikes from her side a split second later, turning her block into a deadly spinning move on the ground with her staff weapon that strongly resembled what would have been called break dancing, eviscerating all four of her opponents at once.

She blocked the grenade blast with a force barrier out of instinct rather than having actually realized it was there. White hot agony exploded through her left arm and leg as she was flunt off part of the walk way down a set of steps behind hair, landing on another part of the marble path.

Time slowed for Bastila as she saw a smirking Dark Agent, a Togrutan, chuck his one use grenade rifle and draw his pistol, pointing it at her head. She was in too much pain to move.

So this was how it ended. One a cold dark rainy night and utterly alone. Just like the night she had come into the Order's service, yelling for a father who had forced himself to stay away for her own good. Her mother's face had been impassive. But her eyes tried to hide an emotion that, as a young girl, Bastila had never determined the nature of.

She remembered the night before the Order had taken her, how her mother, Helena, had cooked her favorite meal. Even then, Helena had been...distant...as a parent. But this one time, this one time she had shown enough enthusiasm that her daughter had finally believed she had reached a turning point in their relationship.

As things were turning out now, it was a dead end.

Bastila was quite certain, that, had she desired it, she could have easily tapped her anger and destroyed her enemy utterly, but fear of becoming exactly like him stayed her will. Now was as good a time as any to go, and at least she could die knowing she had done everything she could to set things right.

Half a second before she knew he was going to pull the trigger, a familiar pink lightfoil erupted from the agent's chest. He screamed as it was dragged up through his sternum, killing him instantly.

Mira and Revan rushed to Bastila's side, Carth taking pot shots with his blaster at Dark Agents whose backs were turned during the fighting. He dropped many of them.

"She's lucky, that explosion should have torn her apart," Mira breathed, cradling the padawan in her arms.

Revan pulled out a piece of shrapnel from her arm. Shan screeched, nearly biting her tongue off in reflex.

A soft white light erupted from his hands. The wounds, the loose sinews and charred patches of skin begin to lash themselves together and then disappear.

"Another few minutes and you'd have hemorrhaged internally," he mentioned, completing the ultra fast healing technique his version of the Order was so good at.

Bastila sat up, the pain gone. "Thank you," she said. "I suppose this means I have to let you live now."

"It would be a nice gesture," he replied, some of his old playfulness returning. "Say, anybody ever tell you that you look incredible?"

She scowled at him. She knew it had been only a joke, but she had no appetite for humor at the moment.

"Start 'that' particular line of crap with your own Bastila," she spat, rising up, dismayed that most of her clothing had been ripped up by the blast and clung to her by a few threads. She heard cheering from the other end of the walkway. The Jedi had defeated the last of their dark counterparts. The walkway was secure.

One Agent in a business suit and gas mask came running up to her. "Name's Karuusoe, Ma'am. Jedi Vice Unit. We were told to expect you. You sure know how to make an entrance," he said in a dark, yet elegant tone.

At the sound of the man's name, Bastila (For reasons that were beyond her), suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to A: Utter a one liner about a dead body, B: Find a pair of sunglasses and put them on after uttering the one liner, and C:Scream "YEAAAHHH!" like a banshee with a sore throat. She wisely decided to suppress all three urges.

"How goes the battle for the Precinct?" she asked, focusing on the task.

"Nolin screwed us good and proper, Ma'am," the Agent answered. "Drew a lot of us out on the walkway, by claiming he had hostages and wanted to negotiate, What we got were these animals in the black coats. He landed a strike team in the first courtyard , and cut us off from access. Rock and a hard place. We saw a few Mandalorian shuttles fly in soon after but we don't know what's happened. Battle went on for half an hour before you arrived."

"Where would Nolin go?" Carth asked.

"My first bet is he's trying to take the directories. It's where we keep a list of info on all the Force Users the government finds out about. Is it true what they say? Does he really dissolve people with his mind?"

"Yes, unfortunately," Revan answered. "He has to be stopped."

Bastila could feel Karuusoe's loathing of Revan like a physical wall around him. "You got some nerve showing yer' face here, Revan. We know you're responsible. If we survive this I can guarantee you Commissioner Vandar (Equivalent to Jedi Grand Master) will have you hanged."

"Let's survive this first, and then we can worry about my neck having a meeting with a rope," Revan replied, suppressing his disquiet.

"Jedi do not kill their prisoners," Bastila criticized.

"Your Jedi. Not ours. He wouldn't be the first guy to swing, either," The agent retorted dismissively, shaking his head in disgust. "Follow me. We're working on opening the gates now."

Bastila nodded, retrieving her lightsaber from the ground. She tested it by turning it on and giving a few swishes, shutting it off after she was satisfied it wasn't damaged.

As the group headed for the Precinct's front gates, Mira whispered into Revan's ear "Roses are red, violets are blue. My husband has died, and now so will you."

Revan ignored the taunt, but gripped Bastila's old lightsaber tightly in his gloved hands, unreadable as long as his bronze mask was on.

A few heavily armed and armored Jedi SWAT team members in brown and white gas masks had just begun to start the hacking process at a nearby terminal next to the wrought iron gates when Bastila had shouted for the agents to get out of the way.

They parted and Bastila blasted the gates with enough telekinetic Force to send the solid metal doors flying open, cracking slightly on their hinges.

She rushed in, finding the wide, tree lined courtyard to be a sight of grisly carnage, Dark Agents lay strewn about in heaps, along with equally high piles of Jedi Agents, and men in white t-shirts and blue khakis, each wearing a face mask with a t-shaped visor, and bearing the ancient skull of a long extinct animal on their shoulders. The Mandalorians Canderous had promised. Strange times made for strange bedfellows indeed.

Bastila grew sick at the sight of such a massacre. The Agents that had fought on the walkway followed, along with Revan, Mira, and Carth.

Revan was silent for a few moments out of shame at what he had perpetuated before he spoke; "I get it now, Bastila. I understand why you didn't want us to know too much. This...is unforgivable."

"Too little, too late," Bastila, Mira and Carth said in perfect unison. They glanced at each other in curiosity for a second before rushing for the Precinct entrance, a series of colored glass doors.

A moan of pain stopped them in their tracks, Bastila located the source and recognized the voice. She turned to her right and spotted Canderous, lying in a puddle of his own blood against a tree.

"Someone get a doctor!" Carth shouted, nearly tripping over a corpse to reach him.

"Why flyboy, I didn't know you cared," Canderous joked, face still behind his mask. He looked at Bastila, who knelt beside him. "Not going as well as we hoped, eh princess?"

"You're going to be alright," she responded, not knowing what else to say.

"Of course I am. Nobody here is man enough to kill the likes of me," Canderous replied, staring as the deep stab wound on his side. "They can sure make me bleed though..."

"Where is he?" Bastila asked.

"Nolin? I imagine that prick is forcing his way past the checkpoints we set up as we speak. He took some of the Jedi Agents prisoner after he shoved a knife into me. I don't know what he intends, but with that look of glee on his face I'm glad I don't have to find out. Kill him. Even I can feel his power now. If he isn't finished off soon, he'll grow too powerful for even you to stop."

Bastila grimaced. "We shall see."

She arose as the Jedi Agents tended to the wounded Mandalorian, the rain still coming down mercilessly the entire time.

"One more thing," Canderous coughed out, as an agent set his power on him. "I think he has Juhani. Don't ask me how I know...I...I just do..."

Bastila nodded, turning her back on her companions. "I must go and face him alone."

"Bastila, that's suicide. You have back-up!" Carth protested.

"Let me go with you!" Revan exclaimed. "I had a hand in his downfall. Let me make things somewhat right."

"You've done enough. Only a true Jedi, with the Force as their ally can conquer Nolin. I'm as much his creator as you are. More so, even."

"Nolin made his own choices Bastila. You can't blame yourself for what he did!" Mira exclaimed.

"I helped him make them by refusing to guide him to the right path when he needed it. Well let me tell you, I'll never neglect someone in that kind of need ever again," Bastila proclaimed, head hung down in shame over her own stubbornness. "Even if that person is a Dark Lord of the Sith," she added quietly. "I must face him by myself. You can do no more good for me. The Force shall guide me now. Wait ten minutes after I'm gone before going in. Good luck."

Bastila strode forward through the rain, finally ripping the domino mask off her face and discarding it. She had to face this threat with her own eyes.

The inside of the hall were much like the outside, a cacophony of violence littered the ornate gilded halls and polished floors, running slick with spilled viscera and the blood of Jedi and Dark Agent alike. Blaster and lightsaber marks scorched the wall, and bodies lay twisted over overturned chairs and overrun barricades.

"This town is never big enough for the two of us," she remarked, proceeding to where she felt the cold feeling increase.

She stopped at a turbolift. Nolin, mind even more corrupted, had written the words I HAVE YOU NOW in blood on the turbolift doors.

"Prick," she muttered, admitting to herself that Nolin was likely beyond redemption. Still if she didn't try to save him, she'd never sleep comfortably at night again.

She stepped into the lift and found a bloody finger print over the button leading to the top floor.

Bastila pressed it. A smart man might have rigged the lift to blow as soon as she pressed it, but Nolin, like all Dark Siders, was so arrogantly sure of his own superiority, he felt the need to act out a grand finale to demonstrate it.

Oh, well, his loss and her gain, she thought as the lift creapt upward.

She steeled herself for what she was sure would be the most dangerous battle she would ever fight.

The opening moments did not disappoint.

Bastila stepped out of the lift and was greeted by twisted wards on the ground written with blood in a language she did not recognize. The bodies of Jedi Agents hung in makeshift crosses in a semi circle. Candles surrounded an alter made out of a wood desk with Juhani in a set of grey and black armor strapped to it. Nolin, having discarded his old uniform was now covered in a tight fitting set of black armor with a white cape and hood. He turned, and Bastila's breath caught in her throat as she saw his bronze face mask had been replaced by a skull like mask with two red smears of blood over the eyebrows.

"Welcome Bastila," Nolin said. "I trust the journey here was not too difficult? My master promised me you would soon be here to witness his rebirth. He can be your new master too, should you desire."

"Nolin," Bastila hissed, teeth gritted. "You've hurt a lot of people. How does this slaughter help save your beloved agency?"

"I did not mindlessly attack the agents here. I explained what I wanted in a broadcast to all their comm channels. They said no and I attacked. I see now that they were too cautious. Too unwilling. I think of what occurred here today as...purification."

"Purification? You murdered people you worked with for years. What could the Dark Underlord have possibly promised you?"

"He promised me the power to undo the old ways, where everyone was too afraid of the Force to assert their will on a galaxy so desperately in need of our guidance. And most of all..." Nolin seemed to hesitate before admitting this next part. "...he offered me the power to keep my daughter from that harlot Arren. She...she won't dare try to take my Brianna from me, now that I have been reborn as Darth Nihilus."

"Whatever he told you, he's lying," Bastila protested, stepping forward. "You're a pawn to him."

"Perhaps, but I have my uses. He's not evil, Bastila."

"Really?" she asked, incredulous as she gazed upon the horror he had turned this place into. "Could have fooled me."

"This resurrection spell you see came from the tome of a Darth Revan. The Dark Underlord simply seeks to spread the gospel of the Dark Side to all Force Sensitive's and lead them from the slavery of the light."

"The only thing that shall spread is his ectoplasm as I hurl his foul soul back to depths of Chaos," Bastila asserted, activating her lightsaber. "You cannot win Nolin. I am a Jedi. You have not had these powers long enough to truly know their actual strengths. Please, for your own sake, Surrender and help me defeat this thing that turned you into a mockery of your former self. Don't force me to kill you."

"Surrender? At the hour of triumph? I think you over estimate your chances," Darth Nihilus replied. He chanted something and the wards under Bastila's feet glowed. The cold chilled her to the bone as she saw a flicker of...something...waft from Nolin's body into Juhani's, who gasped, squirming in her restraints as she choked out cries of pain.

"At last, I get to prove myself against a truly able opponent," Nihilus, chuckled, pulling out his now red flatsaber, once Juhani's, and still in the single-edged shape, but now with a dark red color. "Welcome to the Dark Side, Bastila."

Nihilus screamed and lifted off the ground channeling the Force through his blade and ripping chunks of the ceiling off and hurling them at Bastila.


	8. Last Stand Of The Dark Underlord

Bastila dodged the chunks of debris Nihilus hurled easily. She scrambled behind a pillar. While it had been an easy dodge, the shock of just how powerful Nolin was caught her off guard.

"Whats the matter, Bastila?" Nihilus called out, senses scanning for her. "Bit off more than your Jedi training would allow you to chew?" He slowly floated over to the support pillar he'd seen Bastila dodge behind.

"It's not too late Bastila. The Dark Underlord welcomes all willing to spread the gospel of the Dark Side. With your power, he would easily make you an important lieutenant."

"Of course he could," Bastila replied. "But then what use would there be for you?"

As long as Force Users know the freedom of the Dark Side, conflict between ranking members would be unnecessary."

Her response was mocking. "Keep telling yourself that. You're starting to sound like you actually believe it."

"The Jedi would make us all follow their ways if they could. Sure, they talk about the importance of democracy and a free society-but for others. Never for themselves or those like them," Nihilus stole a look around the pillar.

Bastila was gone.

Cursing under his breath, Nihilus lowered himself to the ground and began stalking around the great chamber. Juhani's screaming reached a new pitch as she writhed on the desk.

Bastila decloaked from her Keto-inspired illusion as she kicked Nihilus in the face, causing him to tumble to the ground, smearing the bloody wards he had drawn on the floor.

He got up, rubbing his jaw. "Deception is a Sith weapon. Are you certain you are a Jedi?"

"Yes. I never said I was very good at it. But I'm sure I'll get better," She replied, reactivating her lightsaber and guarding with it.

"Keep telling yourself that. You're starting to sound like you actually believe it. Why did you not attempt to kill me?"

"I don't want to kill you. I feel responsible for you. This does not have to end in blood."

"It is curious you did not have time to offer that choice to my compatriots before you butchered them. You're good at the whole hypocrisy thing, if nothing else."

"This is your last chance, Nolin. If you say no, you'll force me to destroy you."

"And go to Prison?! You think I don't know they'd give me the needle or the gas chamber?" he spat, reactivating his blade. "Unarmed prophets have always been destroyed, whereas armed prophets have succeeded. I could never stomach things going back to the way they were, with the Agency too scared to do anything with what they have instead of play fortune teller or doctor!"

She stared at him, and pity entered her gaze. "Don't you see?" she asked gently, "You've succeeded. Things can never be as they were. They'll never go back to the old way of doing things. Never. They know the power of the Force now. That knowledge isn't going anywhere. Don't do this. Think of your daughter. She probably thinks of you as her knight in shining armor. Tomorrow she'll fear you as a monster hiding behind a skull."

"Projecting a little bit, aren't we?" he chuckled, angling his blade for a thrust. "I know of you through our bond, Shan. Don't compare me to your failure of a father. He had an incredible power to assert his will over others and he chose to hide like a craven animal from the one person who could have helped him attain everything he could ever desire."

"You don't know what my father went through. Power can be its own curse sometimes," she retorted. "As I'm starting to find out."

"Power? A Curse? Exactly how a Jedi would think. And exactly why I could never stand being one ever again," Nihilus answered, confirming to Bastila once and for all that he was beyond her help. "Die."

Bastila shut off one end of her blade to better parry the set of vicious vertical blows he tried against her guard. She patiently dodged a shien style strike at her hips by back flipping away from him, and retaliated with a wave of her hand that knocked his feet out from under him. He sprung up, flinging his blade low at her feet and forcing her to jump. He caught her in mid air with a Force grip and chucked her into a pillar and then slammed her hard into the ground. she staggered back up, spitting blood out as the lightning flashed outside the glass windows.

"Is this the best you can offer?" he laughed, recalling his lightsaber to his hand. "Your Jedi ways place too much constraints on your power."

"And your arrogance places too many shortcomings in yours," she retorted, eyes glowing bright orange. _"Shove your lightsaber through your head," _she hissed in her echo voice. 

Nolin merely chuckled again. "You cannot beat me simply by commanding it Bastila. I know what I know from you, remember? That means I know how to defend against your petty tricks."

Bastila frowned. There was no choice now.

_"Knowing how to defend yourself is one thing. Actual success at the defense is another. Tell me, Have you learned so much from me that you can now defend yourself from Aleema Keto's tricks?" _She asked, concentrating.

Nihilus guarded as Bastila became six Bastilas, each moving and surrounding him in a different manner.

"Ah...the knowledge you absorbed from the Sith spirit...I...haven't processed it all fully...but I'm sure now is as good a time as any to learn."

_"I'm sure it will be an informative experience," _the Bastila's all said at once, all their eyes glowing.

"Don't you see Bastila, you are almost a Sith right now. If you would just allow yourself to fully embrace the Dark Side, you could be as strong as I am now. Stronger even."

_"As my father once learned from Darth Kitsun," _one of the Bastila's said, thrusting for his torso. _"There's no such thing as a free lunch."_

He parried, only to have her rush her head through the guard and bash him on the face with her forehead. His head snapped back, and he stumbled backward.

_"That wasn't even the real me," _the Bastilas spoke. _"Your mind believes an injury occured, therefore your body conforms to your minds' preconceptions."_

Nihilus roared, directing his draining power at all of the Bastilas present, firing lightning at the same time, the deadly arcs passing through each of them-but not hitting the real one at all.

The illusion passed-and revealed the truth of what happened.

While the fake Bastilas had occupied his attention with a possible attack, the real Bastila had undone Juhani's bonds, smashed the window and leapt out to the courtyard below.

Cursing at how she had played him, he ran to the broken window, just in time to catch Bastila, running with Juhani in her arms.

"You've traded the tiger for the dragon. Nothing more," he spoke, leaping out and lowering himself gently to the ground with telekinesis. "Perhaps I'll let my master play with you for a while."

Bastila ran, as fast as she could with Juhani. The Cather, with more densely packed muscle, was heavier than she seemed. She almost slipped as the rain pounded the open courtyard, flowing into drainage ducts.

She had to find some way to get that evil creature Nihilus had put in her out, or she could well be lost to the Dark Side forever, and saving her friend's soul was more important than any victory over a Sith Lord.

She stopped just before she had reached the second building in the complex, dropping Juhani in shock as a flare of darkness more powerful than any she had yet encountered blossomed in the Cathar's body.

The ground Juhani had landed on started to smoke and turn black. Though she knew it was illogical, Bastila could have sworn she smelled sulfur for a split second.

Juhani's eyes opened, two deep, solid pools of black, she smiled, licking her lips with an impossibly black tongue. She floated up, righting herself in mid-air and landed, turning to Bastila, who slowly backed away.

"Why hello, Bastila! Officer Nolin's told me so much about you!" the dark dead thing in Juhani's body spoke jovially in her voice. "Let's get out of this rain, shall we?"

With a flick of her wrists, Bastila found herself totally immobilized, suspended by the Dark Underlord's power.

Whistling, the Underlord dragged her in mid air by a crook of her finger, heading into the second part of the complex that housed the records and evidence lockers.

Without even looking the Underlord pinned her gently against a wall next to a file cabinet. The Underlord pulled out a seat and sat down, crossing Juhani's legs.

"What a long day it's been, huh. Of course, it was a long five years trapped in that wreck, with only corpses to keep me company," The Underlord spoke casually. "So, I hear you're from a parallel universe also! They serve Corellian Whiskey there? If you don't mind me saying, you sorta look like a scotch person to me."

"Get the hell out of my friend's body you wretch."

The Underlord used Juhani's face to frown. "Ah," it spoke. "To business."

It paused, gathering its thoughts. "I'm not evil, Bastila. I just do evil things for a good cause. All for a good cause. If anything, I'm a revolutionary. A freedom fighter."

"Really?" Bastila sneered. "They must have your face on a t-shirt or something."

The Underlord rolled Juhani's eyes. "If only..." it trailed off."I have worn many faces. Exar Kun. Darth Revan. You-at one point. The list goes on. Long ago when the Order first conceived its tenants, other Force Users knew they would eventually be forced into endless servitude if the Order's teaching left their academies. So they created me. Invoked me-every time."

"Hearts and minds campaign. Gets you every time," Bastila muttered. "I'll never join you."

"If I had a credit for all who said that to me," The Underlord joked, making Juhani's face smirk. "You're on the verge of embracing it right now. The power of the Sith flows through you, opening your senses. Don't be like your father was, Bastila. Don't discover freedom and run away from it."

Bastila's head lowered, a feeling of despair etching itself into her mind. How could she win now? The thing in Juhani had her cold. And the knowledge of the Sith she had absorbed from Keto was becoming harder and harder not to embrace.

Could she give in? Could she leave Juhani to a fate worse than death, forced to look out of her own eyes forever as the Underlord committed what would no doubt be atrocity after atrocity against this galaxy, operating under the delusion it was some sort of savior AND using her body to do it? If she embraced it, could she control it? Could she use such power for good?

As she was experiencing these doubts a strange feeling suddenly washed over her.

She had almost forgotten this particular emotion as the memory associated most with it followed.

It was the day before she had left her home on Talravin. Her father, Anton, loomed ever clear in her memory. A tall handsome figure with salt and pepper lining the sideburns of his dark brown hair, cut in a military fashion. His skin was fine like hers, and he had laugh lines around his blue eyes. He was dressed in an olive drab shirt and a pair of slacks, having never quite freed himself of a military need for personal grooming and discipline. They had been walking the beach as the sun was setting. Bastila had jumped up and down the whole way as they stared at the blue Talravin crabs making their way across the beach.

She had watched her father stretch out his hand, doing one of the strange magic tricks he liked so much and one of the crabs had lifted off the ground, flaying a bit before it somehow realized it wasn't in any danger.

Bastila had marveled as it floated in front of her, eyes staring fixedly at hers. She petted its hard shell for a little bit before her father magically released it, letting it scurry back into the ocean. Then he held out his hand.

"Wanna see another little magic trick?" he asked, in his light timbre of a voice, stretching his arm out into the sun. Bastila, who had been sternly warned never to look into the sun by her mother, had shielded her eyes as he pulled something out of the sky and handed it to her.

It was a tiny transparisteel box with a necklace attached to it. Inside glowed something bright and yellow, yet smooth and small like a glass shard.

"What is it, Daddy?" she had asked, grasping it in awe.

He rubbed her hair, messing up her mother's attempt to comb it that. "A little piece of the sun, sweetie. Just for you."

He held her hand the whole walk home.

The tears came out of Bastila's now brightly glowing pink eyes as she faced the Dark Underlord.

"I love my father," she said gently. "I love him. And that love is worth more than anything you could ever offer me."

Bastila broke free of The Underlord's grip, causing the surprised thing to make Juhani back away as Bastila gave a swiping motion with her hand.

The Dark Underlord made Juhani scream as it was flung out of the records building back into the rainstorm as the entrance exploded, Bastila following closely as she stepped over the rubble. Utter calm flowed through the padawan, along with love.

"Get out of my friend now," she demanded quietly, "Get out of her or I will MAKE you get out."

The Dark Underlord made Juhani rise, still smirking as it made Juhani activate her stone lightsaber.

"I'd like to see you try," it replied with her voice.

It screamed making its host corkscrew through the air as it tried to drive the lightsaber deep into Bastila's chest-who had already dodged by flipping over Juhani and blasting the Underlord from behind with a Force Push, back into the building before catching the Underlord in mid-air and flinging Juhani into Bastila's waiting fist. The Underlord tumbled to the pavement, knocked senseless for the first time in a long time.

The Underlord made Juhani rise, shrieking as it vomited shadows from her throat, which took an indistinct shape of a humanoid holding a sword. They surrounded her.

"The freedom of darkness itself protects me," the Underlord made Juhani proclaim.

"You are but a charlatan and a mere puppeteer, acting through proxy," Bastila spoke dismissively, calling forth her lightsaber from the building. "Do your worst."

The shadows struck, but Bastila spun her double-saber effortlessly, blocking solid, strong strikes and turning them aside in the same instant, shutting off and reactivating either blade any time she wished to let strikes miss her blade completely as the mass of shadow warriors ganged up on her from all sides, trying to skewer her. She blocked them all, her blade passing through their bodies and causing them to disperse.

When she had dispersed the final shadow, she held her lightsaber in front of her.

"Is that your best?" Bastila wondered out loud.

The Underlord made Juhani grin and opened her mouth skyward.

Lightning flooded out of her throat, shooting up into the sky. Bastila suddenly dodged multiple strikes from the clouds above milliseconds before they could hit her, until she was finally using her lightsaber to block the heavens itself.

"You are strong but I am stronger. You are but a child at the Force. I have been doing this before you were even a notion in someone's mind," the Underlord bragged.

The Underlord was suddenly screaming as the lightsaber that had been protecting Bastila suddenly channeled the lightning in Juhani's direction, hitting her dead on, and flinging her into a wall.

"I don't need to be stronger," Bastila replied casually, walking up to the crumpled body of Juhani. "Just smarter."

A yell from behind made Bastila whirl and duck at the same time, Nihilus, having at last grown concerned of his masters vulnerability, had decided to intervene. Bastila casually slashed him across the chest with one of her saber blades, a flesh wound more than anything.

"I will not allow you to ruin everything!" he shouted. "My master WILL bring order to this galaxy whether it likes it or not."

"Nolin," she spat, a mixture of contempt and pity in her voice. "Shut up."

Nolin rushed forward in pure hatred, slashing and stabbing at her guard, his pride refusing to allow him to surrender. Bastila did not meet his powerful blows head on, instead, deflecting them with almost casual spins of her weapon. Several times in the melee she twisted through his guard and let his face walk into the point of her blade, stopping him telekinetically before one could connect with the other and then flinging him backward, just to let him see that the fight was no longer a fight. She turned aside his bolts of lightning , blocked his attempts to drain her. She was on fire today. Finally, she pulled him toward her with the Force, too fast for him to react, and slammed her tattered shoe into his jaw, shattering the mask he wore before chucking him face first into a wall.

Bastila turned around to focus on the Underlord, who had just started to make Juhani's limp frame stir.

Bastila focused her will on the thing in Juhani's body.

"You cannot destroy me without killing Juhani," the Underlord turned, gloating with Juhani's face. "Can you really kill your friend?"

"She knew the risks. And you are NOT my friend," Bastila hissed, throwing her full will against the thing in Juhani.

The Underlord screamed mightily through her, it's own will immense, but the strange emotion Bastila was using to fuel her power was totally outclassing its own strength. Juhani's body flailed and jerked listlessly, desperate to keep its new host, desperate not to go back to existing as a mere presence, when the gospel of the Dark Side needed to spread.

Finally it had no choice. It left Juhani, a dark, black cloud that hissed out of her eyes and mouth, taking the form of a shrouded figure with cold spheres of white fire for eyes. Thunder crackled in its ethereal form.

"I am the freedom of the Dark Side!" It shouted in a multitude of voices without truly having one of its own. "I will liberate all who feel the Force. Through conversion to its beauty or through DEATH!"

Bastila knew that simply focusing brute strength would not be enough to truly destroy it. Spirits like the Underlord were far too powerful for that. The only way was to do to it what you did with any Force Specter: Convince it that it no longer had any reason to remain in the world of mortals.

And the only way to do that was to make it experience contentment.

Bastila's eyes glowed pink. Aleema Keto's teachings had to be used one final time

Bastila stealthily slipped inside the thing's mind, not daring to venture any further lest she allow it to sense her intention.

She focused on the thing it wanted the most. And she made it concentrate on that one thing.

It saw legions of Force users, forever and totally free from the "shackles" of the Jedi. It saw the last copy of the Orders code being thrown into a fire; it saw a mass of lightsabers held in many hands, all red in color. It saw the Dark Side spreading order and freedom-

And for the first and only time in its existence, felt truly, totally, and utterly at peace.

It was so at peace, it did not notice the chains that bound it to constantly return to the mortal realm slipping and breaking off, too content to realize its thoughts and memories were melting into oblivion

Its last thought, before dispersing forever, never to reappear and trouble others again was _And its all thanks to me._

Bastila dropped to her knees from the exertion as she felt it disappear into the Force, tricked into its destruction by her will and Aleema's teachings.

She dragged herself, legs like lead weights, over to Juhani's inert form, using what was left of her strength to feel for any life.

She gasped in relief. Juhani's life-force was weak, but there. It seemed the Underlord had been bluffing. That or Juhani was a fighter, and had been fighting for her life the whole time. Bastila liked the second notion.

"We did it, Juhani," Bastila gasped. "We won."

Much of the fighting had ended in the agency's favor when Bastila walked out with Juhani in her arms, telekinetically holding Rae Nolin in front of her. She unceremoniously dropped him at the feet of the victorious survivors.

Revan had managed to get back into somewhat good graces with the investigators, saving several of their lives as they helped clear out the area surrounding the facility. Most were still giving him the cold shoulder however. Carth and Mira cheered when they saw her, battered and bruised, but in good health otherwise. Canderous and several other Mandalorian survivors fired their blasters into the air as they spotted her. Jedi Police Speeders cruised through the air, surveying the damage. The storm had passed and the stars were showing in the pre morning sky.

Bastila signaled a few Jedi medics and set Juhani on a hover gurney, where they set to work.

"Union military is gonna be here soon. What are we gonna tell 'em?" a female Twi-Lek Jedi agent asked.

"Tell them the truth-how you tell it is up to you," Bastila answered.

This Dimension's version of Vrook strode up, grabbing the nearly unconscious Nolin by the neck, in a full white business suit.

"I say the first order-o-business is stringing this prick up on a noose!" he proclaimed.

Bastila held out her hand. "Vengeance is easy. Mercy is what is truly a challenge. Especially when the person in question seems to deserve so little of it. The Dark Side can corrupt even the most noble of us. And that is the lesson you should take from this as you catalog the bodies of your fellow officers, as your remember the ones you killed who used to be friends. Vengeance," she said holding Nolin up with her mind. "Can easily turn you into him."

She unceremoniously dropped him again in front of a now silent Vrook.

After a moment, Vrook exhaled. "Book this little weasel and get him from my sight."

Two agents approached the inert figure, hefting him up and fixing neural restraints on his wrists. "Rae Nolin, The Agency is charging you with multiple counts of murder, sedition, high treason, and multiple violations of the Force Sensitivity Act-"

Nihilus burst free, lightning charging between his fingers, spittle flying from his mouth he turned to direct his terrible wrath towards Bastila who was more than prepared for his attack.

Before he could do anything, he let out a screech as a yellow lightsaber shaped like a rectangular cube pierced him through the spine. He fell forward, dead.

Bastila got a look at who had made the fatal strike and tried to keep her mouth from dropping. She failed.

It was this dimension's version of her. She wore a brown jumpsuit with white, steel toed boots. Her face was covered in a large angular metal version of the domino mask that was part of this agency's style, much like the mask Rae had used before his fall. Her hair was done in a long stringy ponytail.

"Aye, boyo, you shoulda excercised yer' right to remaining silent and what not," she spoke in an accent unfamiliar to her counterpart.

"Good looking out," was all Bastila could say to her masked doppleganger. She stared at Nolin's corpse sadly before departing down the steps of the precinct.

Juhani had spent the pre morning hours in what was left of the Precinct Infirmary. When she first opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Bastila sitting next to her on a folding chair.

"I take it we not dead?" Juhani asked. "Because if this heaven...it could use fresh coat of heaven paint."

Bastila chuckled, chin resting in her hands. "Glad to have you back. Do you remember anything?"

"Do I want to?"

"Probably not."

"Ah. Just as good then," Juhani replied. "Pity we came here on business. Would have like to stay. To explore. Too much we saw yet not enough." She stared at the outside window across her cot, watching the sun break the horizon. "You think anything like this ever happen to us again?"

"It's a crazy world. Why not?"

"I hope so," Juhani replied quietly. She spotted someone tall, bald, and wearing a deep red business suit with white pinstripes, a iron grey silk scarf around his neck and partially covering his jaw. Alek smiled as he held something in each of his hands.

"You'll probably be going back soon, so Revan wanted to give you something. He held up Bastila's old, single bladed lightsaber, and Revan's mask. "The machine is still set up and ready to go at Revan's apartment at Qel-Droma arcology. He left some other things there also for you to take back."

"How is he?" Bastila inquired, trying not to focus on how much he looked like 'her' Alek.

"Well..." Alek began, scratching his head. "We won, but The Investigators sure as hell aren't happy. We know how the Force works now. You know that old saying 'Ignorance is bliss'? I'm...I'm starting to understand it."

"It's not all bad. There are many mysteries, many secrets, many of them wonderful."

"Most of us don't feel that way. Most of us just want to forget and hope this whole thing blows over. The other agents...they didn't want these powers. It's strange...most of them weren't even curious."

"A Jedi must ever be seeking knowledge. It is a habit you shall have to learn," Bastila replied coolly.

Alek was still frowning. "There is such a thing as knowing too much," he spoke uncertainly, handing her the items and walking away, his hands shoved in his pockets.

Bastila spotted someone she very much needed to talk to. Canderous Ordo marched into the infirmary like he owned the place, and strode up directly to Bastila.

"You Jedi surprise me. You ruthlessly cut down your former allies, and then try to bring the one who made them betray you in alive. An odd policy. One no Mandalorian will advocate."

"Canderous, about our deal...about my killing Revan..."

Canderous held up his hand. "Say no more. The battle has accomplished an even greater thing: It has damaged his reputation badly. No one trusts him now."

Bastila reached into her remaining pocket and pulled out a small datapad. "Here. The coordinates to his space factory."

Canderous took the pad. "I'm surprised you would betray him after deciding to spare him."

Bastila stared at him hard. "If there's one thing I have in common with your people, it is that I like to hedge my bets."

Canderous chuckled. "Don't we all." He tipped his hat to her and walked out of the infirmary whistling.

Juhani and Bastila had left the Precinct on a hero's exit, each wearing replacements versions of the outfit they had come to this dimension with, sans the mask, with the dozens of surviving agents cheering and throwing ticker tape at them all the way to the landing pad. Notably, Bastila caught on to the fact Revan had not been included in the proceedings. But she hadn't asked about where he was as Carth had personally driven them in an agency speeder and dropped them off by the giant hole Rae Nolin had made before escaping.

As the pair exited the speeder, Carth, still in his garish orange sweater that hurt Bastila's eyes called her over to him.

"I just gotta ask one question," he said. "When Nolin first started asking about the Force, you said something to Juhani to keep her from talking. What did you say?"

Bastila blinked, the memory coming back to her.

"I said to Juhani 'The road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions'. It was a lesson I myself should have heeded. I had good intentions, and so did Nolin. Goodbye, Captain Onasi." With that, she and Juhani turned and slowly walked up the steps of the ruined complex.

"Hey Bastila!" Carth yelled playfully before departing. "If you run into your version of me, tell him I said Hi!"

Bastila nodded, laughing as she watched him speed off into the sunset.

When they walked into Revans apartment, Bastila stared at the large oil painting in the golden frame.

It depicted a notable collection of Sith Lords at a table playing Pazaak under a bright light. Exar Kun was dealing the cards in a stylish vest, Naga Sadow was slamming back alcohol straight from the bottle as he sweated and Malak was trying to stare at Darth Revan's cards while Revan wasn't paying any attention except to oggle a passing Twi-Lek woman with red skin.

After spending the next three minutes laughing so hard she hurt her ribs, she noticed that next to it lay one more of this universe's curious decals, also painted in oil.

It was a depiction of her in brown and white lingerie, holding her double-saber over her head while riding a rocketship and winking with Juhani wearing and doing the same.

As a matter of fact, where was Juhani? "Juhani?" Bastila called out. "You better not have left without me!"

"I'm upstairs, thought I had let you get the laughter out of your system."

Bastila sighed. "You setting the machine up?" she asked.

"It already set up."

Bastila sighed and grabbed the paintings. There was no way she was leaving without these.

As she trudged up the steps, she heard Juhani speaking again.

"Say, Bastila, I been thinking we could go back anytime we want, right?"

"Why? You thought about seeing the sights more? Our masters must be frantic-" she said as she stepped into Revans bedroom. She dropped the paintings as she spotted Juhani.

"I was just thinking," she said with a coy smile as she lay on the bed naked, beckoning Bastila. "What happen in parallel universe, stay in parallel universe…"

Dantooine, universe 11-99.

Bastila had gone back to her assigned quarters, meditating on the events of the day atop her cot, recentering herself for the difficult trials still ahead.

She had passed through the fire and had resisted temptation. She had mostly given a truthful account of events while omitting others, such as sparing Revan.

Or absorbing the illusion techniques of a Sith.

Or using the power of Love to overcome the Dark Side.

Or anyone of a dozen other things that had happened that she would never, ever talk about.

They had let her keep Revan's mask, to remind her that her true task lay ahead for when 'her' Revan returned.

She stared at the mask, lit by only the blue moon shining outside and hoped that her Revan could still be reached. She would not, could not, fail.

She spotted the other thing they had allowed her to keep, the decal of her and Juhani. She thought once more of the strange journey and where it had taken her.

"But I wouldn't want to live there," she whispered, laying her head down on her cot and shutting her eyes.


End file.
